


Creatures Such As We

by buckysnowangel, seapigeon



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Asgard (Marvel), Infinity Gems, M/M, Memory Loss, Multi, Outer Space, Polyamory, Post-Captain America: The First Avenger, Science Nerd Bucky Barnes, The Tesseract (Marvel), Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-29 18:08:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19405471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckysnowangel/pseuds/buckysnowangel, https://archiveofourown.org/users/seapigeon/pseuds/seapigeon
Summary: He leans close to Loki.  Their strange passenger has been staring out the window at the starfield since they left the atmosphere, hypnotized.  He won’t hear them.“We were supposed to retrieve the Tesseract.  What do we tell Father?”Loki’s brows dip, and Thor knows from the way his brother is looking at him that this is yet another case of Loki perceiving something long before he does.  It’s annoying, but terribly useful, he must admit.“Thor, heisthe Tesseract.”---------------------------------------------------------------------In 1945, Bucky doesn't fall.  He ascends.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my 2019 Captain America Reverse Big Bang offering! I won't lie, this one was a challenge for me, but I am really happy with how it came out.
> 
> This wouldn't have been possible without the absolutely incredible art by buckysnowangel, the endless support of agentcoop, and the beta services of withinmelove. Also, big thanks to the mods for their patience when I had some personal issues toward the end. This community is full of amazing people.
> 
> The title of this tale is from this Carl Sagan quote on the universe:
> 
> "For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.”

White noise surrounds him.

Steve doesn’t know if it’s the wind from the window Schmidt shot out or his own mind. But it’s...cold. The sweat has dried on his skin. The tears, though, they’re wet on his face, still falling unchecked. He feels his hollow chest still hitching in breath somehow.

All the terror of a few days ago invades him again. Seeing Bucky hanging off the side of that train had wedged the blade of doubt between his ribs. It drove home the fact that no matter how strong he had become, there were some things even he couldn’t stop.

He reached far enough that day and Bucky didn’t fall. They made love like crazed men in a bombed out bar and stared at one another for what felt like hours afterward. _Still here, still here, always right here._

But now…

He sees it all over again. The glint and spin of the shield as he launched it at Schmidt, sending him flying back into what was effectively the engine of this whole death machine...and the cube. Bucky lunged for it, exactly like Steve would have if he was closer. And then it happened. 

_“What have you done?” Schmidt screams. As his voice echoes from the bulkheads, the cube flashes bright, so bright that Steve has to cover his eyes. When he can see again, Schmidt and Bucky both have hands on the cube, and the ceiling looks like something out of a space opera. He can’t tear his eyes away. The stars, the colors…he’s never seen anything like it._

_“Steve?”_

_Bucky’s voice is uncertain, maybe even frightened, and that rips Steve’s attention away from the improbable heavens. Light begins to engulf Bucky and Schmidt, and he can see Bucky actively trying to pull away, fear in his eyes. He’s stuck. His left hand has fused with the cube._

_Steve tries to move, but he’s frozen. The force generated by the cube holds him fast, the cruelest of restraints. He struggles until he’s damp with sweat, heart pounding, muscles straining. It doesn’t gain him an inch._

_Desperate, he locks eyes with Bucky and sees the exact moment when fear changes to resignation, to: I’m not making it out of this one, am I_. 

_“Bucky!” he cries, helpless._

_Bucky’s eyes go soft with affection, telling Steve what he can’t say out loud. And then, in a pillar of light, he’s gone._

The pain wells fresh and shocking, an ache to the marrow of his bones. The Tesseract is no longer holding him, but still he can’t move. Can’t _think_. He’s lost.

There’s no telling how long it takes him to notice the sound. It’s...beeping…? Steve turns his head, feeling like the Tin Man in a world without oil. It’s coming from the...control panel. Of the... _plane_. Yes. He’s on Schmidt’s plane, the Valkyrie, and it’s full of Hydra bombs. He’s supposed to stop it, or it’s all over for a lot of people.

Steve can’t muster a single shred of concern. It already feels over for him _._ He’s never been like this before, so hurt that he doesn’t care. 

In the end, it’s what Bucky would say that drives him to his feet.

_Of all the self-indulgent bullshit, Rogers…_

No room for that, when everyone’s depending on him.

_You’re gonna give up a fight? Who’re you and what have you done with my Steve?_

He can’t give up. Bucky can’t have died for nothing.

Teeth gritted, Steve stumbles to the control panel. He’s learned enough about airplanes from Howard to be able to tell what most of the readouts mean. One engine is out, but there’s still enough power, and autopilot is speeding this metal reaper right along at terrifying speed. _Ziel_ : New York City.

There’s only one choice, really.

Feeling too calm, Steve picks up the radio.

“Agent Carter, come in.”


	2. Part I

He--

_yes, he, you are, I am…him?_

He feels…

Not together. Though he’s not really sure what together _means_. It’s just a word in his...mind. 

Something thrums. It’s

_the power of a thousand stars, matter and antimatter, time and distance unfathomable--_

He. Breathes. This is. A body?

Light.

He sees a--

_hand_

Yes, a hand, _his_ hand, it moves when he wills it. One is...blue. Crystalline. The other is

_meat_

“I’m not meat.”

Oh. There is a voice. The hand touches the...throat. The lips. He hums sound against his limbs. Vibration. Pleasant.

If the hand moves, and the throat speaks, maybe he can control it all. 

_more than you know, little one_

He turns over. Plants the hands in the dark, ferric soil. There are legs, too--

 _hardly the most advantageous design_

There’s a thread of something he thinks is called _memory_ , a room, others with hands and voices and...faces? And one standing above the rest, spilling...not memory, no, what is it called? Oh. _Knowledge._

“Bipedal,” he says. He does not mind his voice. He chases the memory with the vibrations. “Frees the hands for using tools.”

 _you are the tool._

He looks at the blue hand. There’s an impulse to argue, but his bones know it’s fruitless.

It starts to glow. He finds himself thinking _it must be orcs._ What _are_ these words, these remnants? Fragments. He doesn’t know where it’s broken, though. Can’t put it together if you don’t know how it was assembled in the first place.

The hand twitches, and his head buzzes.

 _others._

Yes. Four shapes. Humanoid. Two male, one female, and one indeterminate.

“Hello!” one calls out as they get closer. His voice is friendly. Deep. Nonetheless, a current of unease sweeps through him. He is wary, and the voice that tickles his bones like a soundwave vibrating glass seems to agree. 

“We mean you no harm!” the man calls. He’s blond. Muscular.

_a warrior_

Yes.

_he does not covet._

He doesn’t know what that means, or why it should matter.

“Be careful, Thor,” the fourth one warns. The one that’s _different_. He squints. There’s a faint blue aura to them.

_do you want to see?_

“See what?” he says.

_the true face._

His vision wavers, ripples like heat rising from hot pavement. The different one, the one who hovers close to the blond’s side with dark, clever eyes, turns blue. Their eyes stay the same, and the hair remains long and dark and wavy, but the skin--

_they covet._

“Covet what?” he asks, unable to tear his eyes from them. But the voice does not answer.

“Are you...are you hurt, friend?” the blond asks, stepping closer, hands up. It’s meant to be non-threatening, but the man’s hands and forearms look like they could snap steel.

He has to think about that. The body _seems_ to be all right. The arm, though. He’s certain that it’s different. And his mind feels split, jumbled, like pieces are scattered everywhere or gone altogether. There’s no pain, though. No pain. So he doesn’t really know how to answer the question.

He just stares.

They are a study in expressions. The blond’s face is open, curious, concerned. The raven-haired person is unreadable, save for their suspicion. The woman is simply _ready,_ hand on the hilt of her sword. And the fourth, a large man with wavy red hair and beard, looks eager for a fight.

Is there something here worth fighting for?

_why must your kind always fight?_

“Blast him and let’s go,” the redhead calls out.

“Your diplomacy knows no bounds,” the blue-skinned one says, rolling their eyes. They step forward beside the blond. “Can you understand us?”

That’s simple enough to answer. “Yes.” 

“I am Loki of Asgard. This is my brother, Thor. Our companions are Lady Sif and the inimitable Volstagg. What should we call you, stranger?”

This one isn’t simple at all.

“I...I don’t know.” The blue crystals of the arm wink in the strange light. He really doesn’t. There’s a vague feeling that he was _someone_ , once. But right now, it’s all just blank. An empty page.

“How came you to be here?” Lady Sif asks. She is kind, but cautious.

All he can do is point up at the sky. The clouds here are purple, and the light that filters through them is orange. He knows in his gut that he came from _up there_. But from where, and how…

It’s Loki’s turn again. “You have no memory?”

He shakes his head. No memory of anything that counts, it seems.

Thor frowns. “This is not a hospitable place. Come with us. We can give you a safe place to stay, food and water and company. And time to remember yourself.”

His voice is warm; he believes what he’s saying. Something nags at him, a tingle along his skin, a worm of knowledge in his brain. It says that he can trust the earnest blue eyes.

“To...Asgard?” he tries. That’s what Loki said. They are of Asgard.

“Yes.” Thor doesn’t try to hide his fascination, nor the tender feelings for his homeland. He’s an open book. 

“ _Asgard_!” another voice booms, startling them all. They turn, and there stands a tall man with red skin. His face is nearly indistinguishable from that of a skeleton. He looks like Death in the strange light, if Death wore a military uniform instead of a cloak.

The man throws back his nightmarish head and laughs. The sound of it makes his skin crawl from the inside. He squirms, groans; it’s _unbearable._ The fingers of the hand twitch and sharpen into claws.

“They said I was mad to believe in ancient legends, Viking tales! But here I am, in the presence of gods!” The man steps forward, every part of him radiating smug satisfaction.

_only mortals are impressed by gods, worm_

“Who the hell are you?” Volstagg booms. Next to him, Lady Sif has grown taut like a bowstring, scenting the threat. Loki has also stepped closer to Thor.

This he remembers. That noseless face, twisted to demonry by hallucinations, and pain, pain of all kinds, a desperate knowledge that he must be stopped--

Thor touches him. He gasps as he’s pulled back into the body. The chest pants.

“Red Skull,” he grits out. “That’s what he’s called.” 

“So the Tesseract chose you,” Red Skull says, ignoring Volstagg altogether. Disgust is plain in his tone. “The Brooklyn boy. As ordinary as your friend with the shield. No ambition!” he thunders. “No vision!” 

Quite suddenly, he understands what the voice means when it speaks of covetousness. 

_he courts ruin, you understand_

Yes. He very much understands. He sees it all, bodies and blue light, symbols on flags, numbers on arms, _I have seen the future and there are no flags!_

“You lost,” he says, face stretching into a smile. He doesn’t know the specifics, but he knows that this isn’t the place the other man sought to subjugate.

Red Skull growls and takes a step forward. Loki counters, moving between them with the precision of a very dangerous dancer.

“You guard a usurper,” Red Skull bites off, but he’s cowed; he doesn’t move.

“I guard my brother,” Loki returns, glacial.

Once again, Thor touches him, the contact a zipping jolt that feels like a foothold on a sheer cliff face. He turns to the other man, meeting his gaze. It’s a strange magnetism.

“Brooklyn?” Thor says, hopeful. “Is that your name?”

He considers it. There’s an echo of familiarity. “Maybe.”

“This Red Skull. Is he your enemy?”

He says, without hesitation, “Yes.” The truth of it swells in his chest, and the horror of his transgressions churns his belly. “ _Yes_ . He’s _evil_.” Not in the least from ugly ideals, the boring of eyes and hands, the fire in his veins. Erasure. “He’s murdered hundreds. Wants to make it thousands. Millions.”

_billions_

_consume, consume, til there is naught but empty stars, and it still won’t be enough, a black hole made flesh_

He doesn’t realize he’s breathing hard, tears in his eyes, until Thor clasps both of his shoulders.

“We will protect you, Brooklyn. He can’t hurt you.”

The arm twitches and tingles. The pain disappears. In its place is cold, detached certainty. His voice drops an octave.

“I know he can’t.”

He turns. Loki looks back, appraising, and then steps aside.

It’s a short fight with Red Skull. He feels like a marionette, some other force jerking his strings. 

It’s the arm. 

Rather, whatever the arm is made of. The blue light it radiates is familiar, but he doesn’t know why; there’s a barrier in his mind keeping him from _everything._ Even the lone recall of the red-faced man, he suspects, is intentional. It’s a knowledge to the pit of his guts that he’s evil, a curated glimpse. Whatever controls him wants this creature gone.

The resignation to killing is familiar, too. He stares at his mismatched hands when it’s done. Memory or not, he knows he’s killed before.

Once again, it’s Thor’s hand on his shoulder that pulls him from the mist.

“Come, friend,” he says, gentler than someone his size ought to be. 

He doesn’t know if the sense of safety he feels around the Asgardian is his or the presence’s. But his offer of protection was genuine, and he is not practiced at disguising his emotions. They show on his face. There’s no malice.

And there’s _something,_ as if he’s known someone like this before…

He follows Thor.

  


The man with the crystalline arm is silent as they walk back to the ship. They’ve long known Vormir is a strange planet, one the Bifrost cannot reach. No one is sure why, not even the All Father. Although Thor would swear something flickered in Heimdall’s depthless eyes when he spoke their destination.

It was a simple matter of Heimdall transporting them to the nearest planet and securing passage from there. The locals were happy enough to take their currency, but they all noticed the glances and the whispers, and no one offered to be a guide. Vormir does not have a good reputation.

Sif asked an elder why they seemed to fear the neighboring planet. More or less they were told it’s a place full of death and cursed energies, and that they must be careful. Volstagg laughed at that, barking out, “Do you know who we are?”

“It does not matter who you are, once you set foot on Vormir,” the elder replied.

Thor is inclined to believe her now.

He leans close to Loki. Their strange passenger has been staring out the window at the starfield since they left the atmosphere, hypnotized. He won’t hear them.

“We were supposed to retrieve the Tesseract. What do we tell Father?”

Loki’s brows dip, and Thor knows from the way his brother is looking at him that this is yet another case of Loki perceiving something long before he does. It’s annoying, but terribly useful, he must admit. 

“Thor, he _is_ the Tesseract.”

“But...he said it was a cube.”

“Maybe it was.” Loki shrugs. “But I imagine an Infinity Stone can be whatever it wants.”

“It’s just a rock,” he scoffs.

“Nothing that powerful is just a rock.” Loki’s lips curl up in an impish smile, one of Thor’s favorite expressions. “Have you ever known our father to be a rock collector?”

Thor has to chuckle. Odin is decidedly not a collector of anything that can’t raze entire legions.

“Point taken.” Thor sighs, frowning at the implications. “If you’re right, what does that mean? That the Tesseract is...sentient? We can’t put a sentient being in a treasure vault. That would make us no better than The Collector.”

Loki sighs, too, and crosses his arms. “You saw how he defeated that Red Skull creature. I’m not certain anyone could force him into a treasure vault.” He taps his fingers against his lips. “All the tales say these stones are tricky things. Perhaps the key isn’t to own it, but to gain its favor.”

“Don’t call it an it.”

“ _You_ just called it an it.”

“You did it first!”

Loki smirks. Thor rolls his eyes. Truly, his brother vexes him sometimes. 

He moves away, toward the stranger who may or may not be the Tesseract. Whether he’s the personification of the Infinity Stone or not, he’s still a sentient being. Not an it. He doesn’t like how Loki seemed ready to separate him from his humanity.

“Are you all right?” he asks.

The stranger startles slightly. His eyes are a stormy blue, but the longer Thor looks, the more he sees there, like staring into the Well of Urd. There are worse drownings to be had; he can admit to himself that their new companion is quite attractive. 

He blinks. “My body seems...all right.” There is a detached wonder to his words.

“And the rest?”

“I don’t know.” His eyes flicker, lashes dipping. “Would I sound crazy if I said it feels like there's something in my head telling me what to do?”

“Your brain?” Loki mutters, with no shame at all for his eavesdropping. The stranger's mouth twitches into a smile. There's an apology on Thor's lips, but it isn't needed.

“More than that,” he amends. “Something that's not me. Something…” he pauses for a long time, gaze distant and considering. “Unfathomable.”

Loki is interested now. He's been interested from the moment they were given their mission, but he likes to disguise his sentiments, keep them obscured for any advantage that might offer. Thor can usually read him, though. 

“Is it hostile?” he asks carefully.

“I don't know. I just...I don't know.” He sighs. “I wish I could tell you more.” He touches his temple, sadness sweeping over his features. “But there's nothing.”

Thor gives in to the urge to offer comfort. But this time he reaches for the strange glistening arm. Brooklyn watches him do it, fascinated, as if he isn't sure what will happen.

The answer is nothing. Yes, it's cold to the touch, and sharp, and there's a little buzz in his fingers, like when he touches Mjolnir…

Loki steps in close and lays a tentative hand beside his. It cuts him. He pulls back with a soft hiss. For a few seconds his palm is blue, like a man out in the snow too long. The three of them stare at it as blood returns, warming to his usual shade of alabaster, a trickle of blood stark against it.

“I suppose that's payback,” he breathes. “For my insolence.”

“It wasn't me,” Brooklyn says, apologetic.

“I know.”

“We'll take you to the All Father. He'll know how to help you,” Thor promises.

He can read volumes in the way Loki shifts his posture, and his silence.

He knows they were talking about him. _It_ knows.

He doesn't know what he is, but it's different than whatever he was before. Different, and powerful. He can sense the strength in Thor and Loki - in _everyone_ on board - and knows, without question, that he's stronger.

It's terrifying. 

_and that is why it must be you._

“Don't make me hurt them,” he pleads, soft enough that they won't hear.

There's no answer.

Asgard is resplendent.

_is it?_

_Yes,_ he thinks resentfully at the voice. He can feel its apathy. It may have its opinions but he, Brooklyn, will decide what he feels about this new place. And it's this:

Asgard feels like high spring all the time, warm, sunlit, fragrant, abundant with gold and greenery. Its people are strong-boned and strong-willed. They laugh easily, quarrel easily... _fuck_ easily. He learns that fast; he's barely taken one meal at the palace before someone propositions him, and they're only chased away by Loki's sharp glances. Even then, he knows it's only because they think Loki wants him for himself, and they don't dare tread on the prince's feet.

They call Loki _him_ even though Brooklyn still isn't entirely sure what Loki is. It doesn't really matter; Loki seems comfortable with the determination, even if he's dripping with more braids and jewels than his mother the first time Brooklyn meets her. They're both beautiful. It's a lot to take in.

“My father will not be nearly as charming,” Loki warns, as they walk off their dinner. His bracelets clink, and Brooklyn can hear the faint gliding rustle of his gown.

“You keep saying that.”

“I keep meaning it, too.”

“Well, your mother is lovely.”

“Isn't she?” His smile then is the most like Thor's that Brooklyn has ever seen, though he's only been here a few days and that hardly counts for knowing someone. “Don't let it fool you, she is quite fearsome when she needs to be.” Loki's glance turns considering. “Just like you.”

Brooklyn sighs. Deep down, he's certain he never wanted to be a warrior. Ironic, that he seems to excel at something he'd rather avoid. Not out of cowardice. He isn't _afraid_ of a fight. Just what he'll have to do to win it.

_you are rare, little one._

“It bothers you?” Loki asks, eerily perceptive.

“I prefer peace.” That feels truthful. “Don't you?”

“It has its perks.”

There's a companionable silence. Or it would be, if the voice in his head would shut up.

_he loathes peace. it bores him._

Brooklyn swallows. He doesn't want to know. He _likes_ Loki. 

_as we all must like a spark when it starts the fire that warms us, but remember, little one, what fire can do..._

“When will I have audience with your father?” he asks. It's been nearly a week.

“On the subject of peace,” Loki says, “what you see here in Asgard has been hard fought. We've only known peace for the last three hundred years. Even still, there are agitators, and not every treaty is held in the best of faith. He is to return tomorrow from his peacekeeping.” He says the last word oddly, like it's a weapon. “He should rest, but I'm certain he'll want to see you first.”

“I didn't mean to sound impatient,” Brooklyn says, mortified. “There's no rush.”

“No, I suppose not.” Loki drapes an arm across his shoulders. Brooklyn is painfully aware of his fingers touching the left shoulder, and of how gorgeous he is. “Come have a drink with me.”

_it's okay to want_

That strange borderless sensation hits him again, like he needs to fill every corner of the room, the air, the universe. It's overwhelming.

_it's the only way your kind can ever know._

What, he isn't sure. But he drinks with Loki, and the body feels it. The half of the mind that's his feels it, too. The other half is curiously silent. 

Loki is beautiful and sharp and confusing, and he knows it. 

He finds himself craving physical contact. The vastness in his head needs grounding. If, for a few blessed moments, he can return to his body, to a scale he knows…

But Loki doesn't touch as freely as Thor. Not with his hands. His eyes, though...

Even without the voice in his head, he's aware that Loki isn't good for him, that he's trouble in a sweet head-scrambling package. He thinks maybe he's always liked a little trouble.

Loki doesn't ask to come into his room. He just glides through the door. His gown is slipping down his left shoulder, and the beads and gems of his jewelry gleam against skin fair as milk. He looks like he should taste like sugar. Easy to mistake salt for sugar sometimes, isn't it.

Brooklyn can tell, in the lingering silence, that he's considering it. The ache is heavy, itchy in his fingers. He wants the pale Asgardian to tether him, pin him to the tangible world with his slender body.

Loki lifts a hand, as if to run fingers through his hair. He hesitates.

“I see the way my brother looks at you,” he murmurs. “And the way you look at him.” The mischievous smile is back, fleeting and perhaps a little jealous. “I don't like to share.”

Brooklyn understands. It's unlikely that Loki has a hard time finding lovers to keep for himself. He doesn't need anyone who interests his brother. Brooklyn can't imagine that Thor has any difficulty finding a bedmate, either, but who knows. 

He should say something, but in the end he just nods. Loki kisses the corner of his mouth tenderly, and glides away to his chambers.

The voice stays quiet, but the sensation remains. Sleep is elusive. He's not sure he actually needs it, but he craves a break from the enormity of his mind.

There's no bed partner, but maybe he doesn't need one. He can please himself. If nothing else, it might ease him into sleep.

He closes his eyes. He still feels like he sees. It's strange. Brooklyn tries to imagine a lover; he's had them before, he's sure of that, but he can only call a faceless blond to mind. There's a smell even without the face, and an echo of how he moved, taut and purposeful, and that alone has his cock twitching. He touches his body with both hands.

The blue arm is cool, the fingers like smooth polished stone. It feels strange. He circles a nipple, then pinches it. 

Oh. 

It's good, sensitive, and he plays, rolling and flicking his nipples until his cock is thick and pulsing against his belly. He wishes someone was watching. He pictures the blond sitting in a chair across from him, thighs wide, palm cupping between them. The blonde resolves into Thor with sharp, shivering clarity.

Fuck. He reaches for his dick - right hand, he needs it to be warm, human - and pumps his length. God, that feels so good. It's all he can think about, the slide of his hand, the cool pressure against his balls as he fondles them, pushes gently behind them --

Ah, fuck, what would it feel like to --

His eyes roll back as those polished fingers tease at his hole. 

_this, you covet_

There's no room for denial. His body _sings._ He doesn't know how, but the fingers are slick enough to breach, and he arches, gasping. It feels -- that can't be --

He makes himself pull back. Then he laughs, breathless. The blue hand has reshaped itself into a rough phallus. It’s set at the perfect angle. Still stone, but he's so turned on that the sight of it makes his hole clench and his mouth pool with saliva. He licks it onto his right hand so it'll slide easier on his cock and repositions the left, rubbing the blunt end against his rim.

It glides in so smooth, and it's cold and hard, unyielding inside him.

“Bigger,” he half whines, half whispers. He groans as the phallus swells inside him, stretching him. That's it. That's what he needs.

He pumps his cock fast with it just resting inside him, the icy burn of its intrusion riling him beyond reason. When he shifts, restless with pleasure, it presses in just the right place. It's a meteoric ascent to an orgasm that feels like shattering. He's panting afterwards, letting out helpless little groans, and he's just a body, he's just --

Oh, god, he's just nerves, signals, constellations of cells and atoms, that's all he is. Anchored to his body, he can't hear the vastness of the universe screaming anymore.

He sleeps, and he doesn’t dream.

Loki was not, in fact, exaggerating. When he finally meets Odin, he’s dressed head to toe in armor and the grime and soot of battle, and he ignores Brooklyn completely.

“Peacekeeping,” he murmurs to himself. Fandral hears him, and grimaces slightly.

“Perhaps it would more rightly be called _enforcement_ in some realms.”

Brooklyn frowns.

He sits through tests with beams of light and ancient shamans. Frigga and Thor are there with him, smiling and offering comfort. Loki has gone off on a mission with Sif - peace really _does_ bore him. The All Father stands on the far side of the room, conferring with Heimdall.

He met Heimdall when he first arrived. He likes him. The presence inside him does, too. It felt...nearly like acknowledging an equal.

“He is of Midgard,” the shaman announces.

“Midgard?” Thor asks, with some surprise.

“Its people have come quite a long way since last you visited, Thor,” Heimdall says.

“Chronological age,” the shaman continues, “approximately twenty-seven years. It would appear that the Tesseract has fused with his body to the subatomic level.”

There’s a loaded pause.

“How is this possible? A Midgardian’s body should not tolerate this,” Frigga says, not unkindly.

“It seems the host has been altered. Experimentation, perhaps.”

Thor looks down at him, concern in his eyes. “Brooklyn? Can you confirm this?”

The memories that came with Red Skull come again; the table, needles, delirium, the itch of healing. He shudders. “It...wasn’t voluntary.”

Thor sighs, and Frigga strokes a warm hand over his forehead.

“Can they be separated?” Odin asks.

“Not without significant harm to the host,” the shaman says.

“Then we’re done here,” Frigga says, at the exact same time Thor barks out,

“Will you _stop_ calling him that!”

Odin ignores both of them. “Why, if it only manifests as a limb? Could we not simply remove it?”

Brooklyn feels a cold flush of terror. Thor is gaping at his father, appalled.

“You cannot be serious!” he protests. 

Frigga sighs and holds both hands up. “Enough. No one is removing any limbs. May I speak to you in private, husband?” Her voice is pure steel. And evidently even the All Father knows better than to disregard that.

“He doesn’t leave Asgard, is that clear?” he thunders, and turns in a flourish that would rival Loki’s most dramatic day.

  


“You call that help?” he can’t stop himself from biting out once he’s far, far away from that examination chamber. He feels shaky, itchy with the sensation of containment.

_we can leave anytime we want, little one. it is what we are._

“I’m sorry,” Thor says, and the weight of his regret is genuine. It immediately takes the sting out of Brooklyn’s anger. “My father is a good man, but he is prone to bouts of temper.”

“I’m not what he wanted,” he parses.

_he wanted something he could control._

Strangely, Thor smiles. “If you mean you’re not a small blue cube with a superpowered rock inside it? Then no. You’re not.”

“I’m a Midgardian host with a superpowered rock fused to its arm,” he says in the emotionless tone of the shaman. He doesn’t even know where Midgard is. _What_ Midgard is. And it’s supposed to be home.

Thor takes hold of his arms. It’s incredible, how easily the arm allows his touch. It cut the shaman twice. Odin didn’t even try.

“You’re Brooklyn,” he says, with unflinching sincerity. “And in spite of my father’s lack of hospitality, your presence is very much appreciated.”

_oh, but will they appreciate you leaving half as much…?_

That is the question, isn’t it.

Brooklyn is quiet and unsettled for the remainder of the day. Already Thor has noticed he has an ability to retreat into himself that rivals even that of Loki, but it’s understandable given the fact that he’s sharing a body with an Infinity Stone. The Space Stone, no less. What must the inside of his mind be like? The only thing he can think to compare it to is living within the Bifrost all the time. With that kind of overwhelming vastness, it’s a miracle he’s retained any part of himself at all.

It’s a testament to his character, Thor thinks. He doesn’t know who he is, and Asgard is all new, and still he is kind and open and trusting. That’s not the stone at work, he’s certain of it. Every story he’s ever heard about the godforsaken things are full of greed and malice, poor decisions and ill-fated quests. 

And, well, he is a warrior at his core, and he’s seen him fight. The creature on Vormir - Red Skull - was strong, but Thor _knows_ that even with the power of an Infinity Stone flowing through him, Brooklyn tried to use non-lethal force. At least at first.

His desire for mercy nearly got him killed. Red Skull played dead after a particularly punishing blow from Brooklyn. His acting was good. He waited for Brooklyn to look away, and then he struck.

He had a concealed weapon that spat blue energy. Brooklyn’s crystalline arm jerked up and swatted the beam away like it was nothing. Thor, boiling with fury at the dishonorable tactics, reached for Mjolnir. The strange light on Vormir made the lightning an electric, sizzling pink, and it burned the weapon from the creature’s hand. 

He thinks that’s when the stone took over. Brooklyn’s face went blank in a way that promised no mercy, and seconds later, the Red Skull was dead. And Brooklyn came back just as quickly, regret and resignation heavy on his countenance as they checked him for injuries and then prepared to leave.

“I want to speak to Heimdall. Is that allowed?” Brooklyn asks suddenly, startling him out of his thoughts.

“Of course,” Thor replies. Brooklyn stares at him expectantly and Thor raises an eyebrow. “Do you mean now?”

He nods.

“I would take you, but this is the time when he Sleeps. It’s tiring business, seeing all; without rest, his vision becomes unclear. We can go in a few hours,” he promises. “Until then, I offer you my ear. And whatever else you might need.” 

He doesn’t mean for it to sound like a proposition. But if Brooklyn is in need of that form of comfort, he isn’t averse. Brooklyn’s eyes slide over him. He has pretty eyes, this one. There’s something of a thrill to it, knowing the attraction goes both ways. He’s never been with a Midgardian before.

But Brooklyn stays guarded, and understandably so; his treatment this morning made Thor’s blood boil. Were their positions reversed, he wouldn’t give in, either. His trust has been shaken. It’s not the kind of feeling that inspires revealing even more of oneself.

“I’m happy to listen to whatever troubles you. Unless it’s only for Heimdall.”

“No,” he says, subdued. “I...just want to know more about Midgard. I don’t remember anything, and it’s supposed to be home. That’s a strange feeling.” 

“Perhaps the more you learn, the closer you’ll be to getting your memories back?”

“Does it work that way?”

“I don’t know.”

Brooklyn offers him a small smile. “You know, you and your brother are nothing alike.”

“I’ve heard that. I know Loki seems sullen and arrogant, but--”

“I like you both very much. You don’t have to defend him to me.”

Thor feels his shoulders relax. Loki doesn’t make it easy to get close to him, and he’s made many enemies with his acid tongue. But Thor knows him; under that smirk and the aloof demeanor, he wishes for Thor’s social ease. He wants to be liked and he cares what people think of him, especially Odin. And the hill of Odin’s affections has never been an easy one to climb.

“I’m glad,” he says, around an unexpected lump in his throat.

Brooklyn starts to walk and Thor follows.

“So, tell me what you know about Midgard,” he says.

They stay up through the night looking at star charts. He learns that Midgard is also called Earth and Terra and C-53. Loki and Sif return with the sunrise, tired but unscathed. They sit around a table in the common area and eat an indulgent breakfast while stars whirl in Brooklyn’s mind.

Every chart they pored over summoned an immediate image, and the feeling that in an instant he could be there. That a part of him _is_ there. He’s _everywhere._ If he was alone, it would be a paralyzing feeling. But he’s not.

Thor and Loki bicker and joke in a well-worn brotherly routine. For the first time, Sif seems at ease, and she rolls her eyes at them and eats more than all three men combined. There’s something viscerally comforting about the domesticity of it all, though he has a feeling this food is far better than anything he had in his other life. But the effortless camaraderie returns his mind to Asgard, to one room and one place and the pinpoints of light that make up these people.

“Why,” he asks, in a lull, “was the Tesseract ever placed on Midgard in the first place?”

“It was our grandfather’s doing,” Loki replies. “We were told he wanted it somewhere that no one would think to look.”

Brooklyn is still skeptical. “With people who couldn’t possibly defend it?” 

Sif makes a face, as if she agrees with him but is too diplomatic to say so.

“It worked for a millenia,” Thor shrugs. “And now you’re here with us.” He smiles with unmistakable enthusiasm, and Brooklyn is certain he has no idea how much power the expression holds. 

“Not that he has a choice,” Loki mutters. He had been caught up on the meeting with Odin and the shamans and appeared totally unsurprised by the outcome.

“Don’t you?” Sif asks, gaze keen. “That stone can create portals in space, just like the Bifrost. Can you control it?”

He knows without much thought that the answer is yes. He can control it; all he has to do is think of where he wants to go and the power swells within him, waiting to be released. He could leave right now.

“Yes.” Brooklyn considers the three of them. “If I stay, it will be because I want to.”

This time it’s Loki who smiles.

Maybe he should have waited (or slept) before his meeting with Heimdall. For all the power that hums within him, his body still feels tired. But he has to know all he can about Midgard.

_Why won’t you tell me?_

The voice is silent. It won’t let him remember, but it isn’t stopping him from trying to find information. He wonders if it needs him at all.

“Midgard,” Heimdall says, “is not the backwater it used to be. The last century has seen rapid growth of industry and technology. Soon they’ll begin to investigate space exploration.”

“The last time I was there they existed as nomadic tribes with spears and axes!” Thor exclaims.

“I told you, they’ve come a long way. But not without consequence. A great war rages on Midgard right now, the biggest it’s ever seen. Many are dying.” 

Brooklyn absorbs that. It must be difficult for Heimdall to watch. And if he watches everything...every world…

“How many planets are at war?” he asks.

“Two thousand nine hundred forty seven. But I see only the branches of Yggdrasil.”

He’s not sure what that means, but nearly three thousand planets at war? It’s staggering.

“What are they fighting over on Midgard?” Thor sighs. 

Already Brooklyn has noticed how weary he and some of the other Asgardians are when it comes to conflict. He’s heard about the Kree-Skrull War; neither combatant seems to care what comes between them in their quest to finish the other. Asgard intervened not to choose a side, but to protect others from becoming collateral damage. So Hogun told him, anyway.

“Oh, the usual things. Territory, resources, greed, ideas. But also...the worth of their fellow Terrans. A great genocide has been perpetrated.”

Brooklyn begins to itch, frustration bubbling up from the part of him he knows is still human. Terran. Whatever.

“You see this and you do nothing?” he demands.

“How are we to fight three thousand wars?” Heimdall asks.

And he’s right, of course. Brooklyn has no answer to that. The moment passes with his grudging acceptance.

“The good news,” Heimdall goes on, “is that Midgard’s war seems to be nearing an end. It will be done within your solar year.”

 _Within your year._ He remembers some things; a year is twelve months, a month is thirty days, give or take. What he doesn’t remember is where he was in that year - 1945. For all he knows, it could have been day one when he arrived here. Heimdall seems upbeat about his prediction, but it still seems much too long to Brooklyn. How many more people will die before the war stops? It feels desperately important to him for reasons he can’t remember.

“Brooklyn?” Thor says, touching his arm.

“I was in this war,” he says with absolute certainty. He feels artillery rattling in his bones, knows the shape of a weapon in his hands. The taste of dirt and blood in his mouth.

“You were,” Heimdall confirms. 

A sudden fear wracks him. “What side was I on?”

“The right one,” the all-seeing god replies.

Relief makes him sag. Thor has assured him Heimdall never lies.

There isn’t anything more he feels capable of asking at the moment. He knows the basics - third planet of nine orbiting a yellow dwarf star, an atmosphere rich in nitrogen and oxygen, 71 percent water on the surface, several large landmasses home to numerous species. A highly habitable, though primitive world, by Asgardian standards. 

He’s too far disconnected from it to be insulted by that. He’s seen the three-dimensional rendering of the planet and it feels so familiar, but just out of reach. Something known in another life, an imprint on his bones that he can’t explain. Deja vu.

“You should rest,” Heimdall says, exuding kindness. 

“Yes,” Thor agrees, apparently not liking whatever he sees in Brooklyn’s expression. 

He lets himself be led away, because they’re right.

Thor climbs into bed with him when they get back. That isn’t unusual around here. Physical closeness and intimacy is normal, whether it’s sexual or not. So Thor barely reacts when Brooklyn scoots close, spooning against his back. He needs the touch. The _smell_.

He’s pretty sure Thor doesn’t smell the way Terrans do. He smells like lightning. Electricity and ozone. It’s pleasant, like the first minute of rain on pavement.

These are the memories he does have. Sounds, smells, feelings, indistinct flashes. Nothing concrete. Sure, he can leave, but for what? For _where?_ A planet he no longer knows, drowning in blood?

Is that his thought? Or the Tesseract’s? He doesn’t know. What he does know is that he still feels a pull burning low in his gut for the marbled blue planet.

“What’s the matter?” Thor murmurs.

He exhales. “I should remember it. You would remember Asgard, wouldn’t you?”

Thor considers it. “I don’t know. I’ve never fused with an Infinity Stone.” He turns onto his side, meeting Brooklyn’s eyes. “They’re known to be exceptionally powerful. Even the quest to find them drives people mad, and most who try to wield them die in the attempt.”

Brooklyn digests that. He didn’t know that last bit. Maybe he’s lucky that all he’s suffered is a few lost memories. But that hurts to think; the absence feels like a wound, a knowledge of joy he’ll never find again.

“I think it’s purposely blocking my memories,” he says, giving voice to the suspicion he’s had from the moment he could think coherently. “Why would it do that?”

Thor frowns. He thinks about that much longer, fingers worrying a tendril of Brooklyn’s hair. “Perhaps it’s trying to protect you from something.”

“I don’t want to be protected,” he huffs, aware of how childish it sounds. “And I don’t think that’s the answer.” 

He can feel Thor considering him and his mysteries. Thor is smarter than he seems. Or maybe it’s just that most anyone would look like a simpleton next to Loki.

“You’re not going to sleep, are you.”

Not a chance. “No,” Brooklyn says, miserable with the weight of all the unanswered questions.

Thor chews his bottom lip. A moment later he shifts forward, a decision made. His gaze drifts over Brooklyn, soft as the touch of a gauzy curtain in a breeze.

“I could try to tire you out.”

The intentions of his words are very clear. A little thrill runs through Brooklyn, buzzing low in his core, and...why not? What does he have to lose? By now he’s certain that Thor poses no threat, and will protect him from anyone who does. And this sort of thing isn’t serious here in Asgard. It doesn’t have to mean anything. It’s viewed purely as comfort or bonding, a hug taken further.

He remembers how even just self-pleasure quieted the roar of his expanded consciousness. He slept like a baby after that. If someone’s actually touching him, _fucking_ him…

He shivers. He wants that, has wanted Thor specifically for a while already. He feels strange using him as a means to an end, though. He isn’t wired that way.

“You don’t have to,” he whispers, even though he aches to be touched.

“It is no great hardship,” Thor chuckles. And then he’s leaning in and Brooklyn half-panics, half-melts, and the resulting botched kiss makes them both laugh. It defuses the tension. “You might have to show me what to do,” Thor says, without a trace of embarrassment, fingers tracing over Brooklyn’s jaw. “I’ve never done this with a Midgardian before.”

“I’ve never done this with an Asgardian,” Brooklyn echoes. Then he frowns. “I think.” No, he’s pretty certain, because it hits him all of a sudden; he’s about to have sex with an alien. He’s not sure what it says about him that this makes him want it even more.

Thor levers up and pulls off his tunic. He’s seen him without a shirt before, but lord, what a work of art. His muscles have muscles. There’s something familiar about that, like everything, the echo of some other life tormenting him. Though it couldn’t have been that much torment if there was someone else like Thor.

But he doesn’t want to think about maybe having left someone behind. That will almost certainly ruin his ability to enjoy whatever is about to happen, and there’s nothing he can do to get his memories back. He has here, he has now...he has a very willing and beautiful Asgardian.

Brooklyn rises and removes his own top. Thor inches forward on his knees, and it should be awkward and clumsy but it ends up being deeply graceful and appealing and that is really not fair.

“Tongue?” he asks, after brushing his lips over Brooklyn’s. Brooklyn nods so hard he’s dizzy for a moment. Thor comes on strong, okay, _really_ strong, and for some reason his brain supplies the words _tonsil hockey,_ but a little pressure to his chest conveys the message and he eases back. It becomes _just right_ so fast that Brooklyn’s head spins and before he knows it he’s whimpering into Thor’s mouth and pressing their bodies together.

His touch is electric. It only takes a few minutes for him to become addicted to the little zings along his skin. He wants more, a _lot_ more, and he digs his hands beneath Thor’s remaining clothing. His ass is so firm and muscled he could cry.

Thor somehow gets out of his clothes and Brooklyn struggles to do the same. A cursory inspection shows that their bodies are different, but not tremendously so; it doesn’t seem to be anything Brooklyn can’t handle. His dick, on the other hand - it’s big. Possibly the biggest he’s ever been crazy enough to try to sit on. Not that he’d remember.

And apparently, it’s also got a pair of glands under the head that secrete natural lubrication. A self-wetting dick. Thor has never in his life had to grope for whatever’s even remotely slippery and hope for the best.

“Yours doesn’t do that?” he asks, baffled.

“No,” Brooklyn replies, and gives in to the insane compulsion to know what it tastes like. Thor makes a choked noise as he dips down and licks along his shaft. Fuck, it tastes _good_ , like nothing he can describe except to know he wants more of it, and his lips and tongue tingle as he commits. He’s _huge_ , his jaw already hurts. His everything is going to hurt. He can’t wait.

Thor prods him a minute later, disrupting the manic determination to fit as much of his amazing dick into his mouth as possible that had overtaken him. “What,” he says, a little breathless, “are you doing?” 

Brooklyn blinks at him, processing slowly.

“Do you…not?”

Thor shakes his head, mystified, but exhilarated, like a scientist making a discovery. 

“You’ve no business in a bedroom here if you don’t know how to pleasure a woman with your mouth. That’s an art form. I’m surprised there aren’t contests. But it’s believed that a man’s pleasure is best found inside his partner.” His brow crimps, and there’s an emotion Brooklyn doesn’t understand on his face. “It’s...the strongest bond.” 

Brooklyn starts to move away, disappointed but unwilling to do anything that makes Thor uncomfortable. “I’m sorry. I should have asked.” 

Thor reaches out and stops him. “This is part of the bond where you come from?”

“Yes.” He squirms. He _wants,_ and he likes that strong hand holding him still more than he cares to admit. “But it doesn’t have to be.” Even as he says it, he knows his eyes are probably glazing over with desire. Whoever he is, whoever he _was,_ it’s pretty clear that he likes a dick in his mouth either way.

“It does feel good,” Thor murmurs. His cheeks color slightly. “You can...keep going. If you want.”

He certainly does, though the urgency has faded a bit. If this is his first time, Brooklyn wants to do it right. He takes the time to explore with his hands and tongue. Thor goes from fascinated to utterly relaxed to panting, and that’s before he even gets his mouth back around him. A few times the Asgardian laughs to himself, like he can’t believe it.

It’s pretty great until he gets a bit overzealous and gags himself. He has to pull back to cough and wipe tears from his face, and Thor goes from blissed out to unreasonably concerned in a second.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” he says, floating on endorphins and the ache in his jaw. He’s a mess. He didn’t factor in the self-lubrication when he decided he wanted to do this; he’s slick down to his collarbones. He smiles drunkenly, thinking about what it would be like if Thor fucked his throat. Somehow, based on this reaction, he thinks that’s going to be a hard sell.

“You really enjoy that,” Thor observes, taking him in and clearly liking what he finds. The concern gives way to hazy arousal once more. He crawls forward like a cat, and Brooklyn lays back happily at his advance, curling his thighs around the other man’s waist and arching up for all the contact he can get. He’s so warm and...this is what he’s wanted. Flesh and blood sheltering him, pinning him down, pushing the infinite from his mind.

He’s tearing up again as Thor uses the corner of the blanket to clean him up. Then he kisses him deep, letting his full weight rest on Brooklyn. His cock throbs as he’s held in place, unable to move, Thor’s tongue plundering his mouth. Desire turns to desperation. He’s whining, shivering, clenching with how bad he wants it.

Thor must feel his urgency but he takes his time, kissing him slow and rolling and pinching his nipples until they’re so sensitive Brooklyn wants to scream. He follows that with his mouth and he might actually scream; he has no idea what he’s saying other than _please, please, please._

After what feels like forever, Thor eases back and Brooklyn doesn’t waste time scrambling over to his hands and knees. He tries to catch his breath with his ass in the air, thighs trembling slightly with the force of his need. Thor’s hands are warm on his cheeks, spreading him, but for the first time, he hesitates.

“Our proportions are different,” he says, like he’s just noticing. “Are you sure I won’t hurt you?”

“You won’t hurt me,” he breathes. _Not in a way I’ll object to._

“You’ll tell me to stop if it’s too much?”

He nods into the sheets. Thor’s thumb circles his hole and he groans, restless with the need for more. When he does it again his finger is wet and breaches the rim easily. He teases a little, until Brooklyn is gasping and clenching greedily at him. He chuckles and pulls away. Brooklyn looks back and sees him stroking and squeezing himself, gathering the slick. In another minute he’s good and wet. Ready.

Thor lines himself up and then leans down over his back, kissing his neck and whispering in his ear, “I think you’re a little insane.” He says it like a declaration of love.

“This was _your_ idea,” Brooklyn shoots back, delirious at the blunt promise of his cockhead exactly where he wants it.

“I suppose it was,” Thor allows, and he can hear the smile in his voice. Apparently no more discussion is needed after that; he wraps his arms around him as he pushes forward. 

Already, resistance; his body doesn’t yield as easily as his mind. Once it gives and Thor slides in, the fullness is enough to make him feel on the edge of hysteria. There isn’t enough air. Thor’s hands stroke his flanks, gentle, and the tickling buzz gives him something else to focus on besides the impossible stretch. Thor’s breath is heavy, too.

They stay like that for a minute, adjusting. Then Thor reaches around to stroke him, and he squirms at the touch, trying to process everywhere and everything that he’s feeling. He’s so turned on, just like when he’d pleasured himself. He hadn’t even needed to move. Only this time, he can feel Thor’s heartbeat inside him, thumping in tandem with his, a throb of overload slowly easing into pleasure.

He could come just like this, pinned and impaled on Thor’s cock. Even the thought puts him perilously close and he grabs at Thor’s wrist. Much more and he _will_ come, even from these languid strokes. Thor slows, but doesn’t stop altogether until Brooklyn whimpers.

“Are you ready?” Thor asks, in a tone of voice that sends shivers through him. It’s a bit ragged, affected and unashamed of being such. His hips flex and things shift and Brooklyn sees stars.

It’s more a moan than a word when he says yes.

Thor keeps his promise. By the time they’re winding down, Brooklyn is so tired he can barely move. He can’t even _think_. But something’s not quite right.

“Did you,” he slurs, squinting down at the blond, “come?” 

“Hmm? What’s that mean?”

He must have. They were going for a long time, and toward the end there, when Brooklyn was in his lap, his eyes were rolling back and he let out the most amazing moans. It was pretty clear that he was enjoying himself.

“Y’know,” Brooklyn says, as unhelpful as they come in this state.

“Oh. Climax?” Thor kisses the spot where his neck meets his shoulder. “Several times.” The kiss turns into a bite.

“But…” He’s unable to look away from the sight of a perfect little pearl of his spunk on Thor’s ridiculous chest.

Understanding clicks on Thor’s face. He’s very serious when he says, “I didn’t want to chance impregnating you.”

Brooklyn blinks. Is he dreaming?

“I...can’t...bear children?” is what he manages. “Can _you?_ ”

“No, but I didn’t want to assume.”He kisses Brooklyn gently on the lips. “It isn’t a decision made lightly here. And you never make that decision for someone else.” 

“I can’t control it like that,” Brooklyn says, amazed. “I always…every time.” 

“It’s all right. We’ll just have to take precautions when Sif joins us.” Thor yawns, unbothered, and then tips them down to the mattress.

He tries to fight sleep - he has _questions,_ always more questions - but the Asgardian is in that moment the warmest, most comfortable blanket in the universe, and he loses the fight.

It’s easy to get lost in sexual exploration. It quiets everything. He feels like a _person_ when he’s rooted to his body, instead of a tool. He can connect. The only thing he drowns in is pleasure. 

He doesn’t go to see Heimdall again. Whatever answers he has won’t mean anything without the memories. There’s a place for him here, and a purpose. Maybe there’s even love. 

He stays.

Things are simple, for a time. He trains with Thor, Loki, Sif, and the Warriors Three. It’s good; he learns what he can do with the arm and the power of the Space Stone, and they grow stronger from learning how to fight against it.

Loki has the best record so far. He likes sparring with Loki; he never knows what he’ll do, and the fight becomes a puzzle that he can’t always solve. Sometimes it’s even _fun._ Days like that, he wishes Loki would forget about his no-sharing rule and just get into bed with him. Once in a while Loki looks like he’s considering it, but he never bites.

Sif and Thor are tied for most wins after that, then Hogun, then Fandral, and Volstagg has never managed it, but puts up a hell of a fight that always leave Brooklyn sore and bruised for days afterward. He even got to spar with Frigga once. To say he got his ass handed to him is kind.

Being part of a team feels familiar, easy and instinctual. Sometimes, he looks at them and it’s like they _blur,_ and he can’t remember their names for a moment. He’s certain he’s had a team before. Probably in the war on Midgard - a combat team. People he trusted with his life.

Thinking about it saddens him, because he can’t remember them. So he tries not to think about it.

They’ve gone on some missions, too. Now he’s seen the Kree-Skrull war up close and personal and he understands why this was the one in which they chose to intervene. The Kree are powerful, with incredible warriors and weapons technology, and the Skrull can become _anyone_ to exact their missions of vengeance. It’s embroiled several solar systems in a dozen little side wars - the most notable being _both_ combatants with the Nova Corps of Xandar.

Loki has been instrumental in convincing the Skrull to accept declarations of neutrality. They listen to him because they can’t fool him or become him. Their awe is such that they are true to their word and stop attacking those who don’t know enough about the fight to pick a side, or who simply want peace. They’re even willing to enter into peace talks, under certain conditions.

Collectively, the might of Asgard tries to bring the Kree to the table. Again and again, the Kree refuse. Or at least their Supreme something-or-other, Ronan, does. Brooklyn gets the feeling that he doesn’t speak for every Kree, but he’s powerful. Too powerful to oppose.

And then there’s Thanos.

Thanos is a top-tier asshole on a genocide kick. Brooklyn _hates_ him. There’s no rhyme or reason to the way he moves through the galaxy. They always get there too late and can only help the remaining half of the population try to find a way forward.

“He’s from your solar system,” Fandral points out. Sure enough, Titan is one of moons orbiting Saturn. It’s uninhabitable now, but it wasn’t always.

“They destroyed themselves,” Sif explains. “Exhausted their resources and then turned on each other. The only survivors were the ones who went off-world. Most of them chose to find somewhere new to live. Not Thanos.”

“Could these other Titans appeal to him? Get him to stop?” Brooklyn asks.

“Can’t reason with crazy,” Volstagg mutters.

“Nobody knows where they are,” Loki adds. “They’re out there somewhere, but they didn’t exactly leave a forwarding address.”

He sighs, perturbed. “How are we going to figure out where he’s going next?”

“I have analyzed his movements. There is no mathematical pattern; it’s entirely random,” Hogun says. “He could come here next. Here, or anywhere.”

What they know is that he has an army called the Chitauri to do his dirty work, as well as a collection of minions that he’s abducted from their homes and turned into warrior-zealots. Maybe one or two joined by choice, but it’s no coincidence that they all hail from planets that Thanos has “saved”.

 _Here, or anywhere._ That means Asgard, Midgard, Xandar, and a thousand planets in between. No one is safe.

They’ve relied on Heimdall to alert them as soon as he sees Thanos land somewhere. But once that happens, it takes too much time to gather a sufficient force; strong as they are, the seven of them can’t take on an entire army. Odin has made it clear that he won’t run from planet to planet to try to face Thanos and in the process leave Asgard vulnerable, though he’s more than willing to unleash his full and considerable power if they manage to force a viable confrontation. Brooklyn doesn’t always like or agree with Odin, but there’s wisdom at work there, and a level of sang froid Brooklyn might never achieve.

“Has Thanos ever faced someone wielding an Infinity Stone?” Brooklyn asks.

“I doubt it, since nobody knows where any of them are, except the one attached to you,” Thor says.

“Then I’m going. Next time Heimdall spots him, I’m--”

Four people speak at once, mingled expressions of _absolutely not_ and _have you lost your mind_ and other assorted protestations.

“Oh, _ease up_ , warriors, that’s the first good idea I’ve heard in weeks,” Volstagg booms over all of them.

“He won’t expect it,” Hogun nods. “Brooklyn has the element of surprise.”

“Just make a portal and send him into a black hole,” Volstagg nods, waving a hand. “Bye bye Thanos.”

“He’s a _Titan_ , they’re legendary for their strength and prowess as warriors, and no one’s been able to stop this one!” Thor exclaims. “And what about his army?”

“Any reason our walking Bifrost can’t send them all to Hel, too?”

Thor opens his mouth, then closes it. He looks furious and protective, but he can’t refute Volstagg’s logic. 

“That,” Loki says slowly, “might work.”

“Wait, wait,” Brooklyn protests. “Thanos is terrible and deserves what he’ll get, but an entire army? They’re people, they can’t all be bad.” 

“The Chitauri are drones,” Sif says. “Bred and engineered for war. Their only function is killing whoever they’re pointed at, and Thanos does the pointing.”

“So if he’s not there to point, they might not do anything.”

She frowns. “I don’t know.”

“And _I_ don’t know if I can even make a portal that big.”

“Better start practicing!” Volstagg says into his mead, voice reverberating from the mug.

“Leave him alone,” Fandral replies. “If he doesn’t want to do it, it just means he’s more humane than his foe. The universe needs more of that.”

“Hear, hear,” Thor nods.

“But even if you remove Thanos, that just leaves the Chitauri for someone else’s taking. Leaving the job unfinished might be risking something worse coming along,” Loki points out.

“Like _what?_ ” Thor demands, incredulous. 

The team gets like this sometimes, particularly if mead is flowing. They’re all smart people with strong opinions. Only half of them can agree on anything at a given time, so this kind of good-natured quarreling is a near-daily occurrence. 

For serious matters, Thor and Loki usually have the final say. Brooklyn has discovered that they think very differently, though. If they don’t agree, Sif is the tie-breaker. Early on he thought, because of their obvious relationship, she would side with Thor more. But Loki is the more practical and calculating brother, and she values that, so it’s close to even.

He’s noticed more and more, though, that Loki has a streak of ruthlessness. And there’s very little middle ground to his thinking. As much as he takes after his mother for his looks and abilities, Loki favors Odin in most other ways. 

“I’ll think about it,” Brooklyn says, before they can really get started. Loki can and will imagine the worst, and no one needs that. Thanos is already bad enough. 

  


Three days later he wakes up to the sight of a blond head and a broad back and something breaks through with bruising force.

 _Steve_.

With the name comes _everything._

Steve. His friend _._ His lover. His captain. 

Oh, God.

He kicks the covers aside, frantic. How could he have forgotten? 

“Nnnn?” Thor hums, not awake but aware on some level that movement has occurred. His hand gropes out and lands in the spot Brooklyn just vacated. Recently, he’s been feeling more and more attached to Thor, something they might call romantic love on Midgard. But right now there’s only guilt, because...

 _Steve_.

He almost never uses the stone to get him from place to place outside training, but this time he does.

Heimdall is there, and doesn’t bat an eye at his state of undress.

“You’ve remembered,” he says, direct.

“Yes,” Brooklyn chokes out. “Steve. Steve Rogers. Where is he? Can you see him?”

Heimdall’s eyes drift away from him and focus somewhere else. It seems like it takes forever for him to search. After a while his handsome face creases, and slowly, slowly he returns.

“I see him,” he says, solemn, and Brooklyn’s stomach drops out.

No. No, it can’t be. Steve is so strong, so stubborn, _I can do this all day,_ he can’t have _\--_

“He sleeps,” Heimdall says, with no small share of regret.

The words hit him, and it feels like shattering.

He doesn’t remember going back. All he knows is that everything hurts and he can’t stop crying. 

_Perhaps it’s trying to protect you,_ Thor said.

It was.

It’s untold days before he can muster the strength to leave his chamber. Thor has barely left his side, and the others have visited and offered their respective brands of comfort. Loki read to him, Sif played music for him, Hogun brought puzzles and brain teasers to distract him, Fandral brought gossip, and Volstagg got him staggeringly drunk. Thor has been in blanket mode the entire time and Brooklyn - _Bucky_ , that’s his name - can’t say he minds. But it feels like he’s doing something wrong, accepting his affection, now that he remembers Steve.

What was he doing when Steve was dying? Fucking someone else? The thought makes it impossible to breathe.

It’s not fair to Thor. He knows that, but he can’t help the way he feels, or the way he mourns.

“Do you want to go back home?” Thor asked in the quietest voice last night. A very Steve tone of voice, actually. The kind that said he was with him til the end of the line, even if that line separated them.

He said no.

But he has _family_. Bucky remembers them. His sweet, no-nonsense mother, his father who comes across gruff but will help anyone who needs it. His sister, Rebecca, full of moxie. After Steve, he missed her the most when he was away at war.

He has to know that they’re all right.

He drags himself out to the Bifrost when Thor is sleeping. Heimdall doesn’t look surprised to see him, but then again, why would he? 

“The war,” Bucky says, unable to keep the weariness out of his voice, “is it over?” 

_Did Steve die for something worthwhile? That was all he ever wanted._

“Yes,” Heimdall replies. “At great cost.”

There is no other kind of cost, he thinks, when it comes to war.

“Can you see my family?”

“I can. All is well with the Barneses, save that they miss their son and brother.”

Bucky walks in a circle around the eye of the Bifrost. He feels torn in half. He should be there with them. They’re suffering a needless loss, and if it feels anything like the way he feels over the loss of his best friend and love of his life, he’d do anything to spare them - the people who loved him first, and taught him to love others.

“If I went to them,” he says, “would Odin follow me?”

“As long as that stone remains a part of you, he will want you in Asgard.”

He knew that. Bucky supposes he didn’t ask the right question, so this time he does. “Would he hurt them to get to me?”

There’s a pause, but Heimdall doesn’t lie, nor does he sugarcoat the truth. 

“He might.”

There’s no decision to be made, then. He won’t put them in danger.

“Watch over them,” he entreats. “Please.”

Heimdall clasps his shoulder. “It is my great honor, James.”

He looks up into the god’s fathomless sunset eyes. 

“My name is Bucky.”

Heimdall smiles. “So it is.”

Thor is awake when he gets back. He’s standing by the window in the loose tunic many Asgardians favor for sleep, although he wasn’t wearing it when they actually went to bed. They rarely wear anything but each other and the furs, there.

“I thought maybe you left.” 

Thor doesn’t disguise the emotion in his voice or try to play at being all right. He’s different from Steve in that way.

“I wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye,” Bucky replies. 

“I know my father has made his proclamations, but I won’t let anyone hold you prisoner. Go home if it’s your wish.”

It’s not lost on him, the momentousness of the statement. Thor is willing to defy or perhaps even fight against his own family to ensure Bucky’s freedom. All of it would cause him great personal pain, but it won’t deter him from doing what’s right. He’s exactly the same as Steve, in this.

Bucky strides forward and embraces Thor from behind. He feels Thor tense; he’s anticipating goodbye. Thing is, he’s not so easy to leave. 

_Guess I have a type._

Bucky smiles into his shoulder blades and says, “I told you, if I stay, it’s because I want to.”

Thor lets out a breath and all those muscles slowly relax. Then he turns in Bucky’s embrace and looks straight into his eyes in a way people rarely do on Earth. He knows all of it now, all that Bucky can remember, anyway. It’s so easy to talk to Thor. His focus makes one feel like the most important person in the world.

“I’m sorry this happened to you,” he says with palpable sincerity. 

It still hurts, of course. It always will. But there are so many more wretched ways it could’ve ended. He could have died on Zola’s table. Or worse, survived. If they hadn’t been able to stop Red Skull, the world would have disintegrated in flashes of blue, a madman left to rule over the survivors and the wasteland. Imagine a vision worse than Hitler’s; it still ties his mind in knots.

But the war is over. The boys are back home - those who lived, anyway. The Depression is done, his family is thriving, and he, Bucky Barnes, science enthusiast, is in space. Another realm, surrounded by the intrigue of gods and aliens.

And yeah, it would be better with Steve at his side. That’s a bittersweet given. So is the ache of knowing he can’t see his family. But if it’s loneliness or endangering their safety for his own selfish ends, he’ll choose loneliness every time. Though he’s never been lonely in Asgard. They’ve treated him like family.

He pushes his hands through the blond waves of Thor’s hair.

“I’m not sorry,” Bucky says, and leans in to kiss him.

He’s definitely not sorry when, a few weeks later, Heimdall summons them because he’s seen Thanos land on a planet called Kodaba. He’s had some time to ponder Volstagg’s solution to the Thanos problem, and Bucky has reached the conclusion that he’s the best chance the universe has to be rid of another psychotic murderer with the means to blot out entire civilizations. He’s seen enough genocide. It stops now.

_Kodaba._

All he has to do is think it, and he feels the tickle of the Space Stone in his mind. The stars blink behind his eyes, and --

“Brooklyn, _wait_!” he hears Thor shout.

But he’s already on Kodaba.

Thanos is big. Definitely worthy of being called a Titan. He’s a purple-skinned monolith, bedecked in armor and a suffocating mantle of arrogance. He’s so absorbed in his own superiority that he doesn’t even notice Bucky approaching.

He sure as hell notices when he’s drop-kicked through a shining blue portal right into the maw of Sagittarius A. It’s the end he deserves. No fanfare, no last words. Just the same helpless twilight he bestowed on his victims.

In another second the Bifrost drops the team - his intergalactic Howling Commandos - in the thick of it. There’s no more element of surprise, and it turns out the Chitauri do still function in Thanos’ absence. So do his other minions, who are themselves formidable and mad as hell. It’s a scrap until Hogun and Loki make it onto the ship and shut the Chitauri down.

“I still say you should send ‘em straight into Rigel,” Volstagg says, buzzing with post-battle energy. He’s bleeding profusely from the forehead and looks exactly like a stereotypical Viking. Fucks like one, too, but that’s a thought for later.

“Let the All Father decide,” Bucky responds. Drones or not, he’s not eager to emulate the man he came here to destroy.

An image of Loki blinks to life in front of them. “There are prisoners,” he says. “We need help.”

Most of the prisoners are just that - prisoners. But two are clearly different, and Bucky almost loses himself when they find the first.

She was a humanoid female, once. She’s a patchwork of technology now, the victim of a very long and very cruel experiment. She’s half-dismantled, but she drags herself up as they approach, a part of her own body in her hand like a weapon. Nothing they do can make her stand down until Bucky says,

“Thanos is dead.”

She drops the makeshift blade and herself to the ground. Her expression is mingled grief and triumph, and her tears, when they come, are absolutely silent.

They find out, when they’re able to activate her voice functions several days later, that her name is Nebula. She doesn’t stay; Bucky thinks maybe Odin reminds her too much of her tormentor. Though he knows by now that Odin’s commitment is to peace, not needless slaughter.

The other one is just a child, a precocious green-skinned girl who’s endured none of Nebula’s harsh treatment. Not yet. They try to return her to her planet, but all her family was killed by Thanos, and the remaining people believe her to be forever tainted by her time with him. Like she had any say in the matter. It makes Bucky want to tear his hair out.

Children are so rare in Asgard, though, that it’s no trouble finding her a family. Gamora is sweet and resilient and she settles in quickly. Another galactic stray folded into the fabric of Asgard, just like him.

Bucky remembers, but in time he forgets.


	3. Part II

He regrets everything.

Steve breathes and tries not to feel like the cabin walls are closing in on him. He regrets stopping in Times Square. He could’ve outrun them, easy, if he just kept going. If he just kept his head down and let it all hit him later, somewhere safe.

He regrets agreeing to come to the cabin. It sounded like a good idea on the surface - a secluded place where he could  _ adjust _ , learn about the world as it is now, have his breakdown in private. But this isn’t private; he knows there are surveillance devices. Probably can’t even take a piss without an audience. 

He regrets the notion that anyone had his best interests in mind. Fury’s actions from minute one say otherwise, and he’s fairly certain this structure is built as much to contain as it is to deter. He can’t leave. It’s not a retreat. It’s - it’s decontamination. 

He regrets waking up. It’s all so fresh, and no one is meant to be this alone with such paralyzing grief. He always had at least one someone. His mother, Bucky, Peggy. But there’s no one waiting for him on the other side of the door now. 

They say they’re glad to have him back, and the one - Coulson - means it, but the others? He can tell just by watching them that he’s old news. Things are bigger, better, stranger, and more horrific now. They’re desensitized, even resigned, and he’s a relic. 

_ What do you want me for? _ he asked.

_ Your image is still powerful _ , he was told.  _ It will resonate with people, make them feel safe and remember simpler times. _

He has no idea how anyone could possibly think the Depression or World War II were  _ simpler. _

So here he is, waiting to be made into a monkey on a bicycle all over again. He has no idea what else to do, or if they’d even let him say no. Steve rubs his hands over his face and tries to pretend his eyes aren’t stinging.

  
  


He’s dead asleep between Sif and Thor when Heimdall knocks on the door. They wake him up, but he’s still groggy when he trails after Heimdall. More of the night had been spent awake than asleep. The release was sorely needed, for they’d just returned from weeks out in space chasing rumors that Ronan the Accuser was closing in on another Infinity Stone. A purple gem this time, the Power Stone, no doubt to wipe out the Skrull and the Nova Corps for good. 

Ronan was empty-handed, but Bucky can sense something brewing. Lately, his mind has been feeling stretched and restless. There’s a resonance he can’t explain. A pull. Like something that’s been at the furthest edges of its orbit finally looping back.

There’s no longer a tangible divide between him and the Space Stone; it feels like a part of him that was always there, something he barely notices. The shamans said that they’ve continued to merge over the years. It’s integrated into his DNA. He is  _ becoming _ the stone, although its physical manifestation is still just his arm.

That means that he can’t just ask it, like he might have early on. It doesn’t communicate in words anymore. Usually he can interpret its moods with ease, but this - he’s never felt this before. He’s inclined to believe that the Power Stone is out there, and they damn well better get to it before Ronan.

“Bucky?”

Only Heimdall calls him that. He never told the others what his real name was. To them, he’s still Brooklyn.

“What is it?” he asks, rubbing his eyes. All he wants to do is crawl back into bed for some more sleep. His head feels too full.

“I’ve seen something that may be of interest to you.”

Heimdall does occasionally keep him posted on the goings-on at home. Usually it’s just _ this country is fighting that country  _ or  _ your niece has chosen a husband  _ or  _ they’ve sent a mission to your moon and walked upon it. _ That was one was nice to hear. In time, they’d make their way out further to the richness and ruin of the universe.

“What’s that?” he yawns.

“Your Steven. He’s awake.”

Bucky blinks. It doesn’t fully process, not at first. It’s been so long since he even  _ thought _ of Steve. There’s a familiar pang as he does now, the ache of love lost and more than a little guilt that he’d just forget him like that. Though he supposes it’s less forgetting than it is being capable of stringing together days without grief. He’s getting good at that.

“What...do you mean?” he asks slowly, as Heimdall’s words start to sink in.

“He was frozen in the ice of the Midgardian north, and all this time I sensed no life from him. But your planet is warming. The ice melted and he was found. Once he was free, he woke.” Heimdall puts a hand on his shoulder, just like he had so long ago. “He lives.” 

His ears start to ring, same way they had when he opened his draft letter in 1942. The world narrows to something so small and petrifying - the rattle of his own heart.

“Steve,” he says, voice distant to his ears, “is alive?”

“Yes.”

Alive. Steve. After all these years. How many, exactly? He hasn’t been keeping track, time passes differently in Asgard.

“ _ Where _ ,” he demands. The exact time doesn’t matter; even Heimdall’s most inconsequential updates are enough to tell him that Earth is nothing Steve will recognize. Not anymore.

“New York. A cabin in a place called the Pigeon Lake Wilderness.”

Bucky doesn’t think about it. He just  _ goes. _

  
  


He hasn’t slept in four days. Not more than an hour or two, anyway. He knows from experience he can get by on that, but that doesn’t make it pleasant, and it sure as hell doesn’t fill the other twenty-two hours with anything that gives him any peace.

When his eyes don’t feel like they’re going to cross from exhaustion, he puts on music and reads. There have been some great books and great songs written since 1945, and he’s mastered the basics of the internet. Sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s reliable information and what’s not, or what’s meant as satire, but it’s not that different than getting lost in a library and technology doesn’t scare him. He was friends with Howard, after all.

He’s careful now, since he Googled himself and promptly got mad as hell. If that’s what they think he represents, they’ve got another thing coming. But most searches make him angry or incredibly sad, anyway. The world has grown and changed and advanced more than he ever could have imagined, but all the same shit is still  _ here _ . Like a too-smart mouse, the survivor of all the traps, the one that glares at you from the kitchen floor like you’re the vermin. The ugliness of the world in the 1940s is alive and well.

He’s slouched in a chair staring at the wall, thinking about how the  _ fuck _ there could still be Nazis in the world, when all of a sudden there’s a flash of blue light. His hands jerk up defensively and in an instant he’s  _ there _ , on the deck of the Valkyrie, watching Bucky disappear.

  
  
  


Steve is simultaneously the most beautiful sight he’s ever seen and the most terrible, because he’s a wreck. He looks worse than he did after his mother died, and that was pretty damn bad. It’s clear he hasn’t slept and there are tears in his eyes.

Tears, but no recognition. Steve blinks, eyes glassy. His hands stay where they are. Raised, defensive, strong enough to take someone’s head off.

Bucky realizes that he himself doesn’t look the same. He’s bulked up on good food and strenuous training, his hair is long and twisted into braids, his clothing is strange, and  _ he has a blue crystal arm _ . Why  _ would _ Steve recognize him?

But even as he thinks it, something in Steve’s face clears. 

  
  


He must have fallen asleep. He’s dreaming. But even if he is, it’s a good dream. Any chance to see or talk to Bucky again, even this stylized illusion, is a chance he’s going to take. It’ll probably be the best thing that happens to him all day and it isn’t even real.

“Bucky?” Steve says anyway, praying that it won’t be one of those dreams you wake up from when you realize it’s a dream.

  
  


“Steve,” he replies, eyes instantly welling. It feels like it did when Steve shook him awake on Zola’s table. He takes a step forward, needing to be close, needing to touch.

Steve just looks up at him like Mary receiving her visit from Gabriel.

“You’re  _ alive _ ,” Bucky says, tremulous, cupping his cheek.

“Is that what it means when I’m breathing?” he murmurs, eyes closed. He presses his cheek into Bucky’s hand and slowly opens his eyes. There’s something breathtakingly sad in his glance. “How ya been, Buck?”

How can he even  _ attempt  _ to answer that? He spends a long minute just thinking about it, unable to look away from Steve’s face. The image of him never faded from Bucky’s mind, but he did forget how expressive his face can be and the impact of his presence. It just -  _ he _ just feels like home.

At last, Bucky says, “I’ll show you,” and holds out his hand.

  
  


What’s the harm? It can’t hurt to indulge a dream. 

Steve takes Bucky’s hand. It feels so real, and he wonders if maybe he’s clasping his own hand in his sleep. Wouldn’t that be the saddest fucking thing.

“It might be a little bumpy,” Bucky warns. He’s looking at him like there’s something not quite right, but Steve can’t puzzle out what; he’s just trying to ride this wave as long as he can. Until he wakes up in the cabin all alone again.

“With you til the end of the line,” he sighs, squeezing Bucky’s hand. “Bumps and all.”

That gets Bucky to smile. Then he closes his eyes, looking like he’s deep in thought, and ----

  
  


Steve has never actually been shot out of a cannon, but he has been thrown a hell of a distance by impacts and explosions against the shield, so that must be what it’s like. This is the same. Whatever it is, it explodes in blue light and propels him so fast that he feels like he’s leaving his bones behind.

In the blink of an eye his feet are back on the ground, but they’re not in the cabin. His muscles are shaking like they used to when he had to climb stairs to any floor above the third. He’s dizzy, but the vertiginous feeling fades quickly; he finds Bucky’s profile to his right. And beyond him…

The universe.

  
  


He sets them down on the rainbow road, between the eye of the Bifrost and Asgard itself. It’s one of his favorite places. It still inspires awe, even though he’s seen more of the galaxy than he ever would have imagined.

But Steve’s taking this well. Too well.

“Hell of a dream,” he murmurs, neck craned up.

Oh.

Of course he would think it’s a dream. Bucky would have, too, all those years ago, if he hadn’t had the evidence attached to him.

“You always did like the stars,” Steve says. He’s looking at Bucky like he’s the brightest one, and also like the star inside him is dangerously close to flickering out.

It’s like a punch in the solar plexus. Bucky lunges forward with the force of his feelings, grasping Steve’s jaw. “It’s not a dream, Steve. It’s real.”

He shakes his head. “You’re dead. It took you away. And now I’m just...losing my mind, I guess.” 

“You’re not losing your mind. I’m here. I’m real.” He gives Steve a little shake, frustrated, because the grief in his eyes isn’t budging. “You’re right, it took me away. But it took me  _ here _ , Steve. To Asgard.”

“Asgard,” he repeats, trying the word.

“My arm - it’s the Tesseract. It fused with me. We didn’t know what it was then, but it’s--” Oh, this isn’t the time for a long-winded explanation! “It connects things, makes portals in space. Schmidt and Zola didn’t understand it. They thought they were vaporizing people but they were really just sending them somewhere else. That’s why I was able to come to you. It’s a part of me now.”

Steve’s eyes drift down to the blue crystal. It’s smooth as glass, save a cluster up by his shoulder. It tends to spike out somewhere when his emotions are high. Loki always notices and pokes fun until he feels better or wants to punch him in the face. Either way, he stops thinking about whatever it is that troubles him. 

Steve swallows, looking like he wants to believe him. “They told me...it’s 2011. You should be an old man.”

“So should you, but you look the same.” God, he really does, like it was  _ yesterday _ they launched the attack on Schmidt’s hideout. “I’m not sure I am a man anymore, Steve. But I’m real, and I will do whatever it takes to make you believe that.”

  
  


He’s ready to wake up now.

It’s far-fetched but convincing, his mind stitching up every little detail, and he can’t take much more of it. He really will go crazy. Is this delusion? When you want something so bad your mind makes it real?

At least if he goes crazy he won’t have to go back to that lonely existence in the cabin. The Retreat, they called it. They probably didn’t count on him going on a retreat from reality.

But if it’s going to happen, why not go all in? He’s not a halfway kind of person, never has been. This is the type of fantasy he can surrender to.

“Buck,” he says, “remember what we said we’d do when we got home from the war?”

The man with the long braided hair nods, eyes soft. “Go see the Grand Canyon.”

“Take me there.”

Bucky searches his eyes. It’s the first time he’s felt  _ seen _ since thawing out.

“I’ll do you one better,” he says, and the blue light flashes again.

  
  


They’re not on anything solid this time. They’re just floating, contained in a faint blue sphere. He’s weightless.

This isn’t Arizona.

He and dream-Bucky are suspended above a massive canyon that stretches as far as the eye can see, even past the curved horizon. There’s no blue or green anywhere, just gray and brown and every shade of red he’s ever seen since the serum fixed his eyes.

“You remember Mr. Caplan, who lived in my building? He had a telescope. He called me over one night and showed me this. Valles Marineris, the Grand Canyon of Mars. He said it’s so big it would stretch all the way across the United States.” His hand winds into Steve’s. “Once I learned how to control the Tesseract, this was one of the first places I visited.”

Steve’s brain has stalled out. He does remember Mr. Caplan, one of Bucky’s neighbors, a widower for whom Mrs. Barnes was always trying to find a new wife. He never knew he had a telescope, though, and he sure as hell doesn’t know Martian geography. But Bucky would. Bucky read every book on space he could find, fiction, non-fiction, pure pulp - it didn’t matter.

He looks at Bucky, heart pounding, the thrill of possibility pushing against the walls of his chest. Maybe it’s really him. Maybe this isn’t a dream.

“I cried like a baby,” Bucky says with a faint smile. “It’s incredible, but it just felt wrong without you.”

Tears sting hot in his eyes. That’s exactly how he’s been feeling about this gleaming future. He was never supposed to be here without Bucky.

“This is  _ Mars _ ,” Steve says stupidly, when he means to say  _ I love you. _

“Yeah,” Bucky chuckles. He turns and points with the crystalline arm, singling out a tiny blue disc in the starfield. “And that’s home. Can you believe we thought  _ Europe _ was a big deal?”

It’s him. Oh God, it’s him. It’s real.

  
  


Steve’s lip actually trembles, and then the tears spill over. They don’t even have time to fall before Steve is kissing him. The momentum tilts them back and it’s too easy to yield to it, to wrap his body around Steve’s and hold on. It’s been so long.

Steve’s breath is coming too fast, like it did when he had asthma. His hands are tangled in Bucky’s hair. He’s still crying, but he’s also smiling.

“All I had to do was kiss you, huh,” Bucky nettles, so happy he could explode.

“Shut  _ up _ ,” Steve says fervently, and kisses him again.

  
  


It’s been the longest couple weeks of Steve’s life and almost seventy Earth years for Bucky, but Steve still knows how to fuck him so good he cries. Maybe he’s primed with emotion - the arm is  _ bristling _ as Steve rocks into him, slow but forceful, building him up til he’s aching. Steve has always known how to turn Bucky’s entire being into a lit fuse, whether with anger or love or pleasure.

And the fuse grows shorter and shorter until Bucky is digging at Steve’s back, his flexing ass, and Steve groans as the sharp nails of the left hand scrape red tracks into his skin.

__ There’s no air in his lungs to scream when he comes. It’s entirely different from the breathlessness he feels with Thor, heavier, more meaningful, but no less intense, and his body seizes with aftershocks. He’s a trembling wreck for a long time afterward, tears falling unchecked down his face.

Steve just holds him and nuzzles gently at his neck until Bucky’s cried out.

  
  


After a long, long while, Steve speaks.

“We’re alive,” he breathes into the quietude. His voice is full of soft awe, like he never expected to have this. Bucky sure didn’t. He doesn’t envy Steve his time in the ice, or the freshness of his grief, but seventy years is an awfully long time to miss someone. 

  
  


If only he could ignore reality’s call.

He and Steve barely leave the bedchamber, and if they do, it’s to go somewhere Bucky wants to show him. The others have wisely made themselves scarce, no doubt alerted to Steve’s resurrection by Heimdall. There aren’t words to express how much he appreciates that.

But it can’t last forever. Even Steve seems to be getting a little restless; the dazed expression of the first few days is fading and his mind is starting to analyze all the implications. He’s going to start asking questions soon.

Bucky isn’t afraid to answer them, but he doesn’t know what’s going to happen with Thor and the others now that Steve is here. He wants to believe it will be a seamless integration, but what he has with Thor - it’s more than friendly bonding now. He loves him. It’s different love than what he has with Steve, but that doesn’t make it less important.

He entered into the Asgardian style of physical affection before he knew who he was. He didn’t remember the social and sexual mores of Earth. It was easy to ignore them that way. And even if he had remembered, he doesn’t think he would have cared. He’s always been curious about being with more than one person. It’s as good as he imagined.

But Steve, Mister Waiting For the Right Partner…it may not be for him. And Bucky has to be okay with that. It should be true everywhere, but especially on Asgard, it’s seriously frowned upon to push anyone to do something they don’t want to do in bed. Open, frank discussion and consent are the rules here. Negotiation is all well and good, but there isn’t much wiggle room in strict monogamy.

“Bucky, what is it?” Steve asks, interrupting his thoughts. They must be showing on his face, and Steve has already cottoned on to the tell of his arm. It’s sprouted spines along the whole forearm.

He should have done this before taking Steve to bed. He wasn’t exactly thinking straight, though.

“Steve, I…”

Steve stares at him, clear-eyed and content. Bucky feels  _ terrible.  _ He plows on anyway.

“I should tell you that there’s...someone else.”

It’s instantaneous. Steve’s face doesn’t change all that much, but something shutters in his eyes.

“Oh,” he says in a small voice. He wrestles with it, and then he frowns. “You’ve been...cheating on them with me?”

Oh, Steve. He’s concerned for the other person. Always the other person first.

“No.” He struggles with how to explain it. “Asgard isn’t like Earth. People are more sexually free here. It’s considered a form of bonding. Most close friends sleep together, sometimes in groups, and there’s no jealousy. If two people bond more than others it can become something more, but it’s still…” he fidgets, deeply afraid of where this will go. “There’s no ownership.”

“So you...bonded with someone.” Steve shakes himself and tries not to look sad. “Of course you did, I was dead and it’s been seventy years. I’m glad you found someone.” He smiles and it doesn’t reach his eyes.

This is exactly what he feared. He reaches out.

“I love you, Steve. I want to be with you.” He catches his eyes, even though Steve is trying to avoid him. “Thor knows about you, then and now. He already loves you as my honored dead and my first beloved. It can work.”

Steve is silent, thinking.

“You mean...the three of us.”

Bucky nods. He isn’t going to press his luck right now to try to include Sif or any of the others. There’s a small kernel of hope in his chest because Steve hasn’t said no outright. He’s rarely shy in his opinions, so this means he’s really considering it.

“I have to think about it,” he says at last. “But Bucky, I don’t  _ know  _ him.”

Perhaps that’s it. Maybe it isn’t that Steve’s a one-person guy, just that he has to trust someone to love them. To  _ make _ love to them. It’s not the strangest thing he’s ever heard.

“You know me,” Bucky replies. He kisses him, and Steve kisses back, and if only all of it was as easy as the play of their bodies together.

  
  


They venture out. The people of Asgard are unfailingly polite, even enthusiastic to meet Steve. It’s not often that the honored dead make their way back from Valhalla.

Steve doesn’t quite understand, but he’s used to the attention. He handles it with practiced grace which Bucky well knows is a public persona and not the real Steve Rogers. Funny, since there’s no uniform or shield here. 

The team are less formal so Steve relaxes a fraction, but with Thor…he’s  _ cordial. _ Even that’s a generous description. Thor is one of the most pleasant people in the galaxy, and Steve clams up every time he addresses him.

“Get him drunk,” Volstagg suggests, after night five of uncomfortable silences.

“He can’t get drunk.”

“I don’t believe it. Try harder.”

Bucky laughs. Maybe he should. Asgardian booze works on him, and he’s walking around merged with an Infinity Stone. The serum can’t be stronger than that, can it?

  
  
  


Thor is pacing. Loki is trying to read but he doesn’t care. He needs an audience and his brother is the least likely to try to spare his feelings.

“He hates me,” Thor sighs after his next pass.

“Good,” Loki says from his fainting couch. “Then I can have him.”

“Loki.”

He sighs and closes his book. He even sits up.

“He doesn’t hate you, Thor. He just doesn’t know you.” He sighs again, deeply put-upon. “He’ll discover how revoltingly wonderful you are soon enough. Everyone does.”

“But what if he doesn’t?” he wheedles.

“I don’t think that’s a likely scenario.”

“None of this is a likely scenario!”

Loki declines his head. “You’ve got me there.”

Thor resumes his pacing and asks, “What would you do?”

“I don’t share,” he says simply.

  
  


Loki’s always scheming, though.

The next dinner, he’s all but intolerable. Every person at the table yells at him at least once, and finally, finally, it (and the alcohol) breaks through Steve’s shell.

“All I’m saying is that some people are made to be ruled,” Loki says, sipping his wine. “They aren’t smart enough to be trusted with governmental decisions. They need to be told what to do or else it all descends into chaos.”

Brooklyn is giving him a half-panicked look. Steve hasn’t said anything yet in this Loki-steered conversation on systems of government. But boy, is he about to, if the set of his jaw is any indication. Loki is provoking him on purpose. To what end, Thor isn’t sure, but at least he’ll get to see a genuine reaction. 

“What qualifies  _ you _ to make any governmental decisions?” Steve demands. “Because I promise, you’re not actually smarter than anyone else in here. You just think you are.”

Fandral spits out his mead and Volstagg howls with laughter.

“Oh, he speaks,” Loki returns, supremely bored. “For one, I’m a god. What do you bring to the table, pray tell?”

“He’s not made to be ruled, that’s for sure,” Sif says, smiling. She’s caught on.

“You’re damn right I’m not,” Steve agrees. There’s high color in his cheeks.

Loki smirks. “Oh, I bet he’d kneel along with all the rest of them. I hear Midgardians like to get on their knees.”

Steve stands up. Thor is certain Loki is about to get exactly what he deserves for his obnoxiousness, but instead Steve looks directly at him for what might be the first time.

“The only reason I’m not punching him right now is because he’s your brother and that would be  _ very rude _ .” He says it like he’s trying to convince himself of that. Thor certainly knows the feeling.

“Don’t hold back on my account,” he laughs. “I want to punch him all the time. But he’s baiting you. Loki, stop being insufferable just because you know how.”

Loki rises to his feet, grinning, and multiplies his image until there are twelve of him surrounding the table.

“Give it a try, bootlicker,” he says, though it’s clear he’s playing now. Steve catches the shift, the easing of hostility, and goes with it. He walks in a slow circle, considering every clone. He’s conscious of everyone watching him, but not cowed by it in the slightest. Thor likes that. 

“It’s never the one you think it is,” Hogun offers.

“I think it’s exactly who I think it is.”

“Try me,” twelve Lokis say.

Steve’s looking at one copy, but in an instant his arm shoots out to grasp the neck of another. A solid neck. The room is dead silent for a second. The copies disappear.

Thor tries not to notice the way Loki’s pupils are blown. Steve lets go with a smirk of his own and says, “Best of three?”

The table  _ erupts. _

Oh, dear. Steve fits right in. And Thor would really,  _ really _ like to fuck this man someday.

  
  


“You did that on purpose.”

“Of course I did,” Loki says archly.

It seems to have worked. Thor and Steve are talking more easily now. Body language says Thor is very interested, and Steve is tentative, but not uninterested. It’s a start. It’s been a rough week, but this is progress.

“You didn’t mean any of that stuff, did you?” Bucky asks.

“What, about government? No, no. It’s all a gross oversimplification anyhow.”

“Okay,” he says, watching Loki out of the corner of his eye. Sometimes, with this prince of Asgard, he can’t always tell where the joke starts.

  
  


Steve relaxes more and more over the next few weeks. Bucky knows firsthand it’s easy with the team, a safe, familiar dynamic they both understand from the war and the Howling Commandos. But what really breaks the ice between Steve and Thor is the fight.

The distress call comes from Nidavellir. Ronan has invaded, presumably to compel the Dwarves to build him a weapon capable of wielding the Infinity Stone he seeks. They have no idea if he has it in his possession or not.

Steve is mostly caught up on the various strains of intergalactic warfare that they deal with - the Kree and the Skrull are still going strong, though how any of them are  _ alive _ to continue fighting one another is a mystery to Bucky. Ronan in particular has become increasingly problematic in a way that may soon require a Thanos solution. The only reason they hold back is because it would permanently damage relations with the Kree to a level that might never recover. Though not all Kree support Ronan, and soon enough that will boil over into civil war. He’d wonder if they ever got tired of war, but his own home planet never seems to, so he can’t throw stones.

In any case, staying out of fights has never been Steve’s forte, and nobody in this group will argue with his intention to join, not when they might be up against another Infinity Stone. Bucky knows better than to try to talk Steve out of it. He just makes a portal over to Earth and plucks Steve’s shield out of a heavily fortified storage vault.

Steve looks a little bit strange in Asgardian battle gear and the bright bullseye shield, but it still feels like he’s looking at his Polaris. Bucky used to follow that whirling star with his gun and every bit of his heart. It feels  _ right _ to see it fly along with Mjolnir.

They've trained together once or twice, and it shouldn't be enough for someone new to catch on. But this is Steve. He's never been afraid to jump right in, and his understanding of battle is second-to-none. Bucky learned to trust that long ago.

Even so, the speed with which Steve and Thor find their synergy is incredible. Their styles are similar; tenacious, full throttle, every part of them weaponized and the actual weapons an extension of their will. In no time at all they're in the thick of it, charging right into a throng of what must be a hundred Kree. They're heading straight for Ronan.

"Oh good," Loki says, dripping sarcasm, sweat, and blue Kree blood. He wipes his blades clean. "Now there are two of them."

Sif laughs, and Bucky has to smile, too. Especially when Steve and Thor arrive at an idea at the same time, point at each other, and nearly trip over themselves to execute. Two seconds later, Thor brings Mjolnir down on the shield, and every Kree in a fifty foot radius is knocked ass over tit by a crackling shockwave. Most of them are too stupefied to get up.

The leaves Ronan standing alone. They've split off his forces; the ones not neutralized by Steve and Thor’s makeshift gong have no chance of fighting through a line of Asgard’s finest. Not quickly enough to help their commander, anyway. Ronan’s face says he knows it, but it’s very clear that he intends to fight. The weapon in his hands is unpolished, big and brutal-looking just like him, but there's no tell-tale gleam of a purple gem. He doesn’t have the stone. 

"Bit premature, don't you think?" Fandral says, perplexed and relieved at the same time.

"I think I could've stayed home and finished my lunch," Volstagg laments.

Bucky smiles again and blinks himself into place right behind Ronan. A thought makes his left arm diamond-hard, and he swings without restraint. Ronan drops like he's been sniped.

Just like that, it's over.

  
  


"A hammer," Thor says, inspecting the weapon. "How original."

“It’s a cosmi-rod,” Sif says over her shoulder as she rounds up the stragglers. “The weapon of Kree Accusers? Don’t you ever pay attention?”

“No,” Loki snorts.

“That means he wasn’t seeking something new. He wanted improvements made to his own weapon,” Hogun concludes.

"What?" Steve says. He's bleeding from the ears and Bucky knows he can't hear a damn thing. It's happened before. It'll pass.

Thor holds both hammers up and rolls his eyes, and Steve laughs. It's so damn good to hear that sound. 

  
  
  


They give Ronan to the Nova Corps. Turns out, most of the Kree  _ are  _ ready for peace, and had been working with the Nova Corps to try to stop him. 

It doesn't answer the question of why he believed himself so close to an Infinity Stone that he felt confident enough to invade Nidavellir, nor where said gem is located. But for now, there's a ceasefire, the Kree and Skrull are in peace talks for the first time in decades, and the universe is quiet.

  
  
  


There's a great feast to celebrate the victory, and food, wine, and laughter are plentiful. The Asgardian booze does work on Steve, at least a little, and it erodes his restraint just enough to join in the affectionate revelry. At home there could never be public displays. Here, no one cares in the slightest.

So it goes completely unnoticed, but still feels special when Steve kisses him in front of other people. He keeps kissing him, as a matter of fact, in a way that tells Bucky that they’ll be seeking a bit more privacy soon. The surprise comes when Steve whispers in his ear, “Go get Thor.”

Bucky’s whole body goes warm. He scrambles out of Steve’s lap, looking for his  _ other _ tall, broad blond. It doesn’t take long to find him, and he doesn’t have to say anything. Thor just knows.

Thor escorts them to the room, where he’s the last to step in. He doesn’t shut the door all the way; he leaves it open a crack. It’s symbolic. On a first encounter, it represents the promise to respect one another’s boundaries, as well as gratitude for the gift of vulnerability. In a more literal sense, the belief in Asgard is that love is to be shared, not hidden. It waters the tree. 

Steve won’t understand, but Bucky does, and emotion flutters in his chest. He doesn’t deserve either of them. Not Steve, who’s squaring up for a kiss like it’s a fight, or Thor, who’s looking at Steve like he’s something precious anyway.

Bucky leans into Steve from behind, nosing at his neck. The tension eases from Steve’s muscles at the familiar contact. He turns his head and Bucky can’t stop himself from claiming Steve’s plush lips, kissing him slow and deep. He’s overtaken by that same old bloom of desire that never seems to lessen in intensity. He still can’t believe they found one another again.

He’s so lost in his taste and the slide of tongues that he barely registers that Thor has moved in close. He feels it in Steve’s body, though. The attenuation. Anticipation. Thor’s left arm slides around both of them, settling on Bucky’s ass. But his lips settle on Steve’s neck, tracing the cords of muscle, and now Bucky’s distracted, because he wants to see. He wants to watch the two people he loves most discovering each other. 

He isn’t disappointed. Steve surfaces, tilting his head, breath catching at Thor’s open-mouthed kisses just below his ear. He always did like that spot. 

There’s a moment before they kiss when they’re so close they’re breathing one another’s air, and the chemistry is palpable. Thor waits for Steve. It has to be his choice. And it is, because he lifts his chin and they come together slow, with aching sensuality. He’s never seen Steve kiss someone else like that. It’s  _ hot _ .

Bucky can’t help himself. He slides a hand down Steve’s belly and into the front of his pants. He’s already half hard, and he hums into Thor’s mouth when Bucky starts to stroke him the rest of the way. It doesn’t take long, and Bucky isn’t far behind. It’s so damn sexy to watch him tangling tongues with Thor.

There’s too much clothing on both of them. All of them. Bucky gets a fistful of Steve’s shirt in his left hand and feels no shame whatsoever at banishing it to god knows where. Thor chuckles, but it dies when he gets a good look at Steve’s chest. He is, definitively, a chest man, no matter the gender or anatomy of his partner(s), and Steve’s got pecs to die for. 

Still too much clothing, though. He’ll just have to get their pants out of the way. He nudges at Thor’s hip, and he moves enough that Bucky can kneel. He wastes no time getting Steve’s pants down and his mouth around his dick. Thor’s a chest man, he’s a dick man. He’s been thinking about being on his knees between them for weeks.

He alternates while they kiss with mounting fervor, not minding that they’re drifting closer and closer together. Maybe he can --- yeah, now that they’re crossing swords he can definitely get both of them in his mouth at the same time, at least the tips. Bucky moans, knowing he’s getting himself a little too worked up, but fuck, it’s worth it. His lips are so stretched, his mouth so full, and he doesn’t want to stop. Of course he has to at some point to breathe, and when he looks up they’re just  _ staring _ , equally enthralled.

He smiles dreamily. Thor smiles back and shakes his head a little, and Steve - well, it doesn’t seem like his brain is really working right now.

_ There’s a lot more where that came from, honey _ , Bucky catches himself thinking.

Then Thor surprises him by easing down to catch his lips, leaving them both knelt at Steve’s feet. He could cry. Thor is still a bit mystified by his love of this act, but he doesn’t mind it, and has gotten pretty good at reciprocating. But this - it’s - he melts into Thor, letting his mouth be plundered until Thor pulls back and takes him by the hair to guide him back onto Steve’s cock.

He doesn’t leave him alone there, though. It’s a joint effort. They lick along Steve’s shaft together, kiss wetly over the head, and take turns at a lazy, unhurried blowjob. It’s got Steve weak in the knees and Thor more riled than usual; he’s leaking a little puddle of lubrication and starting to test the limits of his throat, which he doesn’t do often. Bucky watches him reach up to pull Steve’s hovering hand down into his hair. He’s really not sure what’s going to explode first: his heart or his dick.

“Oh,” he hears Steve whisper. “ _ Fuck _ .” 

It won’t take much more to make him come. He’s always had a hair trigger, at least for the first orgasm. It won’t be the last, but it’ll be perfect just like this, both of them bringing him off. He swipes at Thor’s cock for a handful of lube and fists the base of Steve’s cock, stroking in time with Thor’s rhythm. He looks so pretty sucking Steve’s cock, tongue pressing just under the frenulum like Bucky taught him.

Steve tenses and makes a little sound he knows so well, and then he’s coming on both of their faces. Bucky can’t resist sucking at him while he’s sensitive, milking the last drops out of him while he groans and twitches, and even more than that, he can’t resist kissing Thor, sharing the taste of Steve’s spunk.

They’re all breathing hard as they come down, and Steve can barely stand. He’s leaning on Thor’s shoulder for support. After a moment, Thor rises and scoops Steve up like he weighs nothing, and Bucky can  _ see _ the protest forming in Steve’s expression - he hated being reminded of his frailty when he was small and old habits die hard - but Steve stops himself. He visibly gives in, wrapping his thighs around Thor and holding on, letting himself be carried. Letting himself be cared for.

Bucky isn’t sure he could get away with that. Steve resented so much the care he needed before the serum, and no matter how much they love each other, there will always be some remnant of that Steve in Bucky’s head and heart. Steve’s not the only one with old habits. 

But Thor is entirely new, and Steve can trust that there’s no sense of duty to his actions, no perception of dependence or weakness. All of it makes Bucky want to cry happy tears; Steve finally accepting that he deserves to be cared for, and Thor wanting to give that care in the first place. Of course, Thor would nurture a clump of dirt if it looked sad enough, but even in free-loving Asgard, all of the waiting he’s done over the last month or two without knowing what the outcome would be might make one less than charitable. 

Heart full to bursting, Bucky gets up and joins the two loves of his life in bed.

  
  


He thought it would be strange, maybe even painful watching the man he loves get fucked by someone else, but it just...isn’t. Not with Thor.

Bucky’s on all fours between them, and for a while he was enthusiastically enjoying being spitroasted, but now he’s so blissed out that he’s just resting his cheek on Steve’s thigh and whimpering as Thor fucks him, steady and unrelenting. It’s so clear that he’s loved; Steve sees it in the way the Asgardian’s eyes devour him.

He’s hard as a rock, but he barely even notices because they’re so beautiful. Thor knows exactly what to do to him and when, and it’s just so  _ hot  _ to see that single-minded focus on Bucky from the outside. It’s incinerating to be able to watch what it does to Bucky, too. His pleasure is intoxicating.

Thor hikes his hips up a bit and goes harder, giving Bucky no quarter. Bucky’s nails dig into Steve’s thighs and his face knits in an expression of rapture. Steve knows that orgasm, the one where he just dribbles cum from having his prostate pounded. This is the second one already.

Delirious, Bucky reaches back for Thor’s wrist.

“Come in me,” he begs. “ _ Please.” _

Thor slows, and he and Steve both push Bucky’s hair from his sweaty skin. Thor beholds him so tenderly. It’s hard to look away. Is it possible to fall in love with someone else’s love?

Thor’s eyes track to Steve when he says, “Of course, beloved.”

Yeah, it’s possible.

  
  


Thor’s a little stunned. Much as he insists it’s not different when he orgasms without full ejaculation, it is a bit more intense to let go. Everything about this encounter has been intense in the best kind of way, and it’s only the first time.

He’s pretty sure Brooklyn wants both of them to come inside him. He’s already climbed astride Steve. For a long while they didn’t move, just kissing like it’s been too long - they  _ always _ seem to kiss like that, and it hurts a little because they endured being apart a long time in their years. Now Brooklyn is riding him, back arched, head tilted back in abject ecstasy. Steve looks at him like he’s a work of art, a priceless treasure. 

He is.

The sheets rustle as Steve reaches out. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t need to. Thor goes, his worries evaporating.

It’s going to work. They’re going to be fine. 

_ More  _ than fine.

  
  
  


Bucky wakes up six nights in a row just to look at them. Just to drink in the way Steve lets Thor spoon him - lets himself be made  _ small _ \- and how absurdly content Thor looks nuzzling him in his sleep. It’s amazing to watch them fall for each other.

But the seventh night, Steve isn’t there.

He finds him out on the promenade staring at the stars. The night is cool and pleasant, but Steve’s face tells Bucky the conversation might not be.

“Heya, Buck.”

“Hey.” He bumps his shoulder into Steve’s. “You all right?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I’ve just been thinking about home.”

Ah. He thought maybe the last month or two had been enough to make Steve forget. He hoped he wouldn’t have to convince him to stay in Asgard. Bucky can’t bear the thought of being separated, not now. Not ever, really, but especially not now.

Steve looks at his hands, frowning. “I was only awake for a few weeks, but it was enough. They’re not okay, Buck.”

“You don’t have to be the one to fix it,” he whispers. He’s not sure Steve  _ can _ fix it, and he should never have had to hold the weight of their world in the first place.

“It’s home.” He gestures at the vast sky. “Maybe from out here it doesn’t look like much. The sky isn’t falling, the world’s not gonna end. But it’s bad on the ground. I’ve been talking with Heimdall, and...it’s Hydra. They’ve infiltrated countless world governments. They’re in SHIELD. They’re gearing up for something.”

Bucky curses softly. He didn’t know that. He wasn’t  _ trying _ to know. What was the use, if he couldn’t go home? There’s no accusation in what Steve is saying, but Bucky feels guilty nevertheless.

Steve meets his eyes, and there’s that look - the one Bucky could never resist. 

“If we don’t stop them, maybe it will be the end of the world. We can’t sit this one out.”

Bucky sighs and takes his hand.

“I know.”

  
  


Steve is  _ livid _ when Bucky finally tells him that technically, he’s not allowed to leave. His request has already been denied. It’s not like Bucky can’t just  _ go _ , but he’s afraid to bring any retaliation to Earth. He’s heard enough tales by now to know it would spell disaster.

Naturally, Steve doesn’t care who Odin is, or how powerful he might be; he’s ready to fight. Thor talks him down, but Bucky can tell he’s angry, too.

“I don’t see what the problem is,” Sif opines over a gloomy breakfast. “The Tesseract was left on your world essentially  _ unguarded _ for millennia. Now it’s got two of the strongest guardians possible and Odin won’t have it?”

“They’ll think he’s weak if he lets the Infinity Stone leave Asgard,” Loki says.

“The Infinity Stone has a name,” Steve fires through his teeth. He and Loki still get under one another’s skin from time to time, even when they’re not trying to. There’s an awful lot of sexual tension there that Bucky would not care to examine, though he fully understands.

Loki is smart enough to leave it this time.

Thor is not.

“You know what, Sif is right. This is madness.” He looks over at Bucky, face hard with determination. “I always told you I wouldn’t stand for you being held prisoner. I will have words with my father, and more if it’s needed.”

“We both will,” Steve growls.

  
  


Bucky goes with them to make sure they don’t get themselves killed, and Loki comes to show support - and hold Steve back, if necessary. It’s in front of a full Asgardian court that they make their appeal.

“I have already ruled on this matter,” Odin booms from the throne.

“I do not believe you have considered all the implications,” Thor replies, just as loud. “The Tesseract was left on Midgard for more than a thousand years with nothing but simple men to guard it, and you had no concern then. Brooklyn has proven his strength and loyalty time and time again. Not only that, he has tolerated your unjust rule that he not return to his home and his family, for the good of Asgard. Now Midgard is threatened. Would you turn your back and lose this realm for your pride?” Thor demands.

The room is deathly silent. However, Frigga is smiling.

“You speak passionately,” Odin says, after a long minute. “As would any man whose judgment is clouded by romantic infatuation.”

Thor is stunned into silence. Steve doesn’t have that setting.

“There’s a pretty big difference between compassion and infatuation, which you might know if you ever came down from that throne,” he bites off.

Loki steps forward before anything else can be said, both hands up. “Father, it isn’t a matter of the heart for me, and I believe Thor is right. The Space Stone could not be better defended than it would be with these two, on any planet.”

“The universe has changed. The people of Midgard are weak. Too weak to be trusted with something of such value anymore.”

“I’ll show you  _ weak _ \--” Steve starts, bristling, and Bucky grabs his arm to stop him. But Thor grabs him, too, and pulls him forward. He’s glaring daggers at his father as he raises his hand. He’s calling Mjolnir.

“I do not advise you try,” Odin says, ominous. Bucky’s stomach drops.

“Thor. Thor, please, don’t, it’s all right. Steve can go, I’ll stay, it’s  _ fine, _ ” he pleads.

“It is not fine,” Thor enunciates. The hammer flies to his hand. But instead of using it, he says, “Hold that,” and passes it to Steve.

And Steve _ can _ hold that. He takes it without thought, hefting it as easily as one might hold a fork. A gasp goes up among the crowd.

“What?” Steve asks, confused at the reaction.

Thor only has eyes for his father, and boy, are they spiteful. “Tell me again how my  _ romantic infatuation _ has clouded my judgment on this matter.”

  
  
  


In the end, Odin concedes. Behind closed doors, of course, and after much shouting and his entire family siding with Bucky and Steve. He isn’t happy about it, not just because of his considerable pride, but also for the security of Asgard. For that reason and that reason only, Bucky agrees to always answer the call to defend Asgard, if ever he’s needed.

They explain to Steve what it means that he’s able to lift Mjolnir. Besides Thor, only Odin, Frigga, and Sif have ever managed it. Loki can’t, and Bucky can’t, either. Steve is unimpressed.

“I don’t want to rule Asgard,” he says, clearly annoyed by how much they revere the decisions of a hammer. “I don’t want to rule anyone or anything.”

Loki looks like he could spontaneously combust with frustration, and he doesn’t speak to any of them for two days. But eventually he gets over it.

  
  
  


Night finds Steve on the promenade again. They’re set to leave tomorrow, and a vigorous, emotional fuck let them all sleep for a few hours, but now all three of them are awake and contemplating the way things are about to change.

“What’s our plan?” Bucky asks, sidling up on Steve’s right side. They haven’t talked about it yet, but he knows Steve has one.

“I think we start with Agent Coulson.” Steve nods to himself. “Heimdall confirmed he’s not Hydra, and it seems like maybe he’ll listen.”

“And then?”

“Anthony Edward Stark.”

“Howard’s kid?” Bucky hazards.

“Yeah. He’s some kind of genius. Apparently he’s been flying around in a metal suit acting like a superhero.”

“Just your type.”

Steve shrugs. “We’ll see. Heimdall says he’s outrageously rich and has a lot of personality _. _ Whatever that means.”

Bucky laughs. Howard had enough “personality” for three people. He can’t imagine what Anthony will be like. 

“When is Thor going to join us?” Steve asks.

“When they’re done with the Power Stone investigation,” Bucky sighs. They had all agreed that took precedents for Thor. He wants to be there with them, but his first duty is to Asgard. Love doesn’t change that.

Steve looks pained at the thought of the separation. By now he’s more than a little in love. This will be difficult for all of them.

  
  
  


“Maybe after this,” Steve says softly, “we can stay.” 

He means in Asgard. Earth’s home, and Steve will always defend it, but the personal trappings have been gone for a long time. 

“Maybe,” Bucky replies, and leans into his side. 

  
  
  


It’s 12:06 pm, Eastern Standard Time, on January 1, 2012, when Steve and Bucky appear in Phil Coulson’s living room. The man is in pajamas and has a handful of popcorn halfway to his mouth. It’s clear that he recognizes Steve, even though Steve has grown his beard and hair out. 

“Hello, Agent Coulson,” Steve says. “We need to talk.”

“Sure thing, sir,” he says carefully, with a damn good poker face. “I was just watching the Twilight Zone marathon. Let me turn off the TV.” He reaches for the coffee table.

Bucky snaps and the devices on top of (and below) the table disappear. 

“Your recording devices won’t work, your guns are gone, and the camera that was in that plant over there is now taking some nice footage of Jupiter, in case you were wondering,” he says.

Coulson blinks at them for a long minute, and then he sits back.

“Okay,” he nods. “Cap. Cap’s friend. Pull up a chair.”

“It’s Bucky Barnes, actually,” Bucky corrects.

“Bucky Barnes,” Coulson mutters to himself, twitching a little. “Of course that’s who you are.”

Steve sits down, helps himself to the popcorn, and says,

“Let’s have a little chat about Hydra.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Exit Poll: Should I write a sequel?!


End file.
